Rackhouse Ventures

Early-stage, AI/ML-focused venture firm — backs founders “at the intersection of AI/ML and the real world.”

Profile

Founder & Managing Partner: Kevin Novak — Uber’s first Head of Data Science (invented Uber’s dynamic pricing); ex-Chief Data Officer at Tala.
Other partners: Brendan Baker (Partner; ex-AngelList #2, ex-Greylock, ex-Ridge Ventures) + several venture partners.
HQ: Menlo Park / San Francisco (SoMa).
Funds: Fund II $45 M * * (c l ose d 2024); F u n d I * *$ 22.3M (2021) — ranked top-5% per Cambridge Associates, 32 investments.
Focus: GenAI, AI Services, and data-enabled marketplaces; pragmatic founders with PMF in “overlooked niches.”

Connected via Sandy Cass (Red Swan) — after their 4/30 call, Sandy emailed 2026-05-01: “I had a thought on an investor for you to speak with. We’ve co-[invested]…” (suggesting Rackhouse).
Sazzad accepted 2026-05-02: “It’s pretty clear you have a lot of respect for them… I would like to hop on a call with them, feel free to do an intro.”
Status: intro accepted, not yet executed — Sandy then pivoted the thread to round-structure discussion; no Rackhouse contact has been made yet as of 2026-05-28. ^[verified from work-email thread “Great chatting!“]