OpenView Venture Partners
Built OpenView Venture Partners as Category-Defining Expansion-Stage VC Firm
I founded OpenView Venture Partners to fill a critical gap in the venture capital landscape. At the time, most VCs focused exclusively on early-stage startups or large growth equity deals, leaving expansion-stage B2B software companies—those generating between $1-50M in revenue—underserved. These companies had proven product-market fit but needed strategic go-to-market support to scale effectively, and no dedicated firm existed to meet their unique needs. To build OpenView from this insight, I raised our first $100M fund and assembled a differentiated team by recruiting three operating partners with deep B2B SaaS expertise. Together, we developed a comprehensive expansion-stage playbook that focused specifically on helping portfolio companies optimize their go-to-market strategies during this critical growth phase. We successfully deployed the fund across 12 companies and achieved a 3.2x return. More significantly, OpenView became the category-defining firm for expansion-stage B2B SaaS investing, validating the market need we identified. The strategy's success influenced the broader venture capital ecosystem, with several other VCs subsequently launching similar expansion-stage investment programs modeled after our approach.
Designed and Launched Quarterly AI Benchmarking Survey Across 50+ Portfolio Companies
OpenView's portfolio companies were rapidly adopting AI technologies, but leadership lacked a standardized way to track progress or compare capabilities across the portfolio. Without visibility into which companies were leading versus lagging in AI maturity, it was difficult to allocate resources effectively or identify where strategic support was most needed. I led the design and launch of a comprehensive quarterly AI survey to address this gap. I began by interviewing 5-6 portfolio company CTOs to identify the most meaningful AI metrics to track, ensuring the survey would capture actionable insights. I then built a 20-question survey in Typeform and collaborated closely with our portfolio team to drive adoption, ultimately achieving an 80% response rate across more than 50 companies. To make the data actionable, I created a benchmarking dashboard in Claude that allowed each company to see how they ranked relative to their peers across key AI capabilities. While the survey has not yet produced measurable outcomes, the expected impact is significant. CTOs will use their personalized benchmarking reports to identify capability gaps and prioritize AI investments with greater confidence. Leadership will leverage the aggregate data to make informed decisions about which companies require additional support or resources, enabling more strategic allocation of OpenView's expertise across the portfolio.