Founded & Funded
Listen to conversations between Madrona investors and entrepreneurs, founders, and startup personalities who talk about some of the key moments in building a company. Designed to give would-be founders and others interested in working with or for startups a view into the struggle and the lessons learned, these conversations are informal and informative. With more than 25 years of investing in early-stage technology companies, Madrona has worked with founders from day one to help build their company for the long run. We invest in seed and Series A companies in the Pacific Northwest building across the information technology spectrum and in Acceleration (B and beyond) stage companies building with AI, regardless of geography.
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Where is OpenAI going, and what does it mean for the broader AI and tech ecosystem? Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer at OpenAI, for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions shaping one of the most influential AI companies in the world. In this live conversation fro
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken sits down with Investor Rasik Parikh to unpack his journey from public markets to venture capital and what makes a founder stand out. Rasik shares how working across institutional investing, M&A, and now enterprise AI at Madrona has shaped
Redefining Communication: Yoodli Founders on AI Roleplays, Confidence & Building in Seattle
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Patrick Ennis sits down with Varun Puri and Esha Joshi, co-founders of Yoodli, an AI-powered communications coach helping people become more confident speakers. Varun and Esha share their leap from Big Tech into startup life, eating noodles on secondhand couc
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Babak Parviz and Daniel Kelly, co-founders of NewDays, a platform purpose-built for older Americans living with cognitive change to help them reclaim abilities, preserve independence, and keep being themselves. Babak and Daniel sha
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Joe Horsman sits down with Jeff Leek and Rob Bradley, co-founders of Synthesize Bio, a foundation model company for biology that's unlocking experiments researchers could never run in the lab. Jeff, chief data officer at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and Rob, the Mc
Fyxer.ai is an AI-powered assistant that helps users reclaim hours of their day by managing their inboxes, writing replies, and taking meeting notes. But Fyxer didn't start with AI. It started with a decade-long executive assistant agency that gave them a treasure trove of data and insight that became the foundation fo
