There are venture firms that follow momentum, and then there are venture firms that engineer it. Costanoa Ventures belongs to the second category. Founded in 2012 by Greg Sands, the firm was built with restraint and intent. Fewer investments. Deeper engagement. Higher signal. With more than $2B in assets under management and fresh capital from a $275M Fund V and a $119M Opportunity Fund III, Costanoa is doubling down on early-stage AI-enabled B2B companies where complexity is a feature, not a bug.
Greg Sands structured the firm around discipline. Each partner makes just 1–2 new investments per year. That constraint is strategic. It protects focus. The partnership, including Amy Cheetham, Jim Wilson, John Cowgill, Mark Selcow, Martina Lauchengco, Michelle McHargue, Nancy Katz, and Tony Liu, concentrates on AI-enabled SaaS, AI and data infrastructure, cybersecurity, national security, and fintech. These are markets where regulatory friction is real, data gravity is heavy, and execution separates operators from tourists. In a noisy startup ecosystem, specialization becomes leverage.
The results are visible. Alation. Demandbase. Quizlet. Companies that understood early that data is not a dashboard accessory but an operating system. Costanoa invested before AI became a boardroom buzzword. They backed infrastructure when others were still debating interface. That pattern recognition matters now, as enterprises demand secure, scalable AI systems rather than experimental demos. In today’s startup ecosystem, durability beats novelty.
What sharpens Costanoa’s edge is BuilderOps. Talent, sales, marketing, product. Operational support designed for Day 0, not Series C cleanup. Katy Wiley leads talent strategy. Taylor Bernal drives marketing and platform. Founders get help defining early hiring plans, building repeatable go-to-market motion, refining positioning, and tightening product feedback loops before misalignment calcifies. Early-stage companies fail quietly on fundamentals. Costanoa intervenes early and methodically.
The firm’s expansion into cybersecurity and defense technology underscores where conviction is heading. AI is not just software; it is infrastructure, security, and national capability. Costanoa is allocating capital where enterprise demand, policy tailwinds, and technical depth intersect. In a maturing startup ecosystem, that intersection is where asymmetric outcomes form.
Costanoa does not posture as a volume shop. It operates like a concentrated portfolio builder with capital depth to follow on through breakout stages. Lead early. Support actively. Double down with intention. That model resonates in a market recalibrating toward fundamentals.
Their portfolio companies are hiring across engineering, product, sales, and operations. If you are building in AI-enabled SaaS, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, national security, or fintech, study their pattern recognition. The modernstartup ecosystem rewards clarity over hype, and Costanoa has been playing that game for more than a decade.
Follow this firm. Study their founders. Track their plays.
