Venky Ganesan

Can You Still Win in Venture Without a $1BN Fund? Menlo’s Venky Ganesan on the New Rules of VC

Venky Ganesan, Harry Stebbings

Menlo Ventures employs an aggressive "buy everything" strategy to participate in defining AI companies, prioritizing the ability to scale positions in outliers over maintaining high initial ownership stakes. Partner Venky Ramachandran guides this approach by emphasizing data-backed conviction, rapid capital deployment, and the selection of founders capable of communicating complex concepts simply. The firm accepts dilution and lower equity percentages at the seed stage to secure entry into massive opportunities like Anthropic, aiming to maximize returns through asymmetric upside rather than early-stage control.