True Ventures

"As customers start spending in eight figures... usage-based billing really breaks." Martin Mao (Chronosphere) on why your growing Datadog or Splunk bill is just a symptom of a broken pricing model—and why AI workloads will expose this even faster. #ConnectedStack #AIWorkloads #InfrastructureScale

20 years ago tonight, Philip Black and I founded True Ventures. It was a fairly inauspicious evening - Phil had a board dinner at Tamarine, and I had a brand new baby at home.  We’d been dreaming up a new kind of venture firm, and it was time to sign the papers and make it happen. I dashed out of the house during the bed-time ritual with my (then) three young children at home, and together Phil and I signed the management company agreement on the bar top at Tamarine. We formally incorporated True. At that point, Phil and I had already known each other and worked closely for over 14 years. I still remember the feeling of excitement, incredible trust, and fidelity in choosing such an special Partner.  We were going to do something big and meaningful, and we were going to have fun doing it. We’d go on to close Fund I just a few months later. A lot has changed since then, and True has had the incredible privilege of funding well over 500 companies, 1,200 founders, and creating well over 100,000 jobs. We’ve had immense highs, our share of challenges too, and we have been lucky enough to be a part of many, many world changing companies. One thing that hasn't changed is our founding values: we believe that people are everything, and we believe that bold Founders can change our world and deserve the absolute best in a venture capital partner. The best entrepreneurs deserve a steady, powerful, experienced, and trusted partner for the long haul.  We have built that. We are that. I'm immensely proud that over these last 20 years we've held these values closely and proudly. With each of the talents of the so many incredible people, Partners, and team mates who have joined this journey, we've become stronger and better. Importantly the founders who placed their trust in us over these many years have been huge partners in creating this powerful and enduring firm. And we are grateful for the enduring support of our brave and powerful LPs. The True Team is unbeatable. Most importantly, we’ve had the incredible good fortune of having our families support us and each other every step of the way. We wouldn’t be who we are today without the strength and love of our families and friends (for me that’s Christie Callaghan and my four incredible boys). I feel like we are just getting started, and we have a lot of big plans for the days, months and next 20 years ahead. But tonight, as I think back on that incredible decision to partner with Phil Black and dream big, I feel like the luckiest person in Silicon Valley.

“Consensus never built the future… it will be built by those non-conformists.” True Partner Tony Conrad joined the Oxford Generative AI Summit to discuss how bold ideas and small, non-conformist teams are shaping the next wave of AI innovation.

🚀 We’re hiring an AI Builder in Residence at True Ventures. This person will work directly with me and the rest of our investment team in San Francisco — a hands-on, in-the-trenches role for someone who loves to build, learn, and explore what’s next in AI. It’s the kind of opportunity that can be genuinely career-launching — you’ll spend your days in the mix with founders, experimenting with new tools, prototyping ideas, and helping us shape sharper, faster investment decisions across the AI landscape. Over two years, you’ll see the full spectrum of what it takes to build at the frontier — and hopefully use that momentum to launch into your next chapter as a founder or early team member at a breakout startup. If you’re the kind of person who builds by doing — tinkering, prototyping, and shipping — and gets energy from seeing what’s around the corner, this is a special opportunity to learn, contribute, and create from the inside. https://lnkd.in/gNPXJK_2

What's new at True? We are still on a high from the Connected Stack event, which we co-hosted with 20 other VC firms. Read Jon Callaghan’s recap of the event, check out NVIDIA’s investment in Basecamp Research, and catch up on the latest True portfolio highlights and True team media features.

Here's to a "bold next chapter" for Amy Errett and the team at Madison Reed. True Ventures has been here since day one. Big, good, enduring businesses take time, hard work, and a lot of heart. Incredible to see this team execute so well at such scale. The venture business is all about empowering and believing in contrarian visionaries like Amy over the long term. Well done Team MR for building this incredible company. https://lnkd.in/gJrCi85W

The next major breach won't come from stolen passwords. It'll come from agent identities — and you can't see them yet. At #ConnectedStack, Rich Dandliker from Veza laid it out: Agents are already in your production systems. They're composite identities — part human intent, part AI autonomy. They don't fit traditional IAM frameworks. And most security teams have zero visibility into them. The risk? You need to secure BOTH the agent AND the human behind it. Miss either one, your infrastructure is exposed. Traditional identity security assumes one identity = one human. That assumption just became your biggest vulnerability. The companies that figure out agent identity governance in 2025 will survive. The ones that don't will be the cautionary tales. Moderated by Amanda Robson (Modern Technical Fund) alongside Verkada and Semgrep — an exceptionally valuable security conversation. #AgenticSecurity #IdentitySecurity #ZeroTrust #AIAgents

Get to know True’s Tony Conrad in conversation with Mikaela Lipsky as they walk through San Francisco - hear about his favorite coffee spots, the people who continue to shape his thinking, and his advice for those beginning their careers in venture.

Hear directly from Julie Walker and Mikaela Lipsky about the True Ventures Fellowship program. Applications are open now! Link in comments to apply.

Kakul Srivastava isn't building "push-button creativity." The Splice CEO just made TIME's list of 100 AI leaders for proving something crucial: AI can empower artists without displacing them. Here's what sets Splice apart. Their AI helps musicians discover compatible samples from a 3-million-sound library—not generate fake music. Users can hum a melody into their phone and get human-made samples that complement it. They can transform sounds into playable instruments while the original human creator still gets compensated through automatic licensing. Every sound in Splice's marketplace comes from a real artist. The AI just gets out of the way of the creative process. "The creative process itself, regardless of your tools, is incredibly difficult," Kakul told TIME. "We want tools to get out of the way...so it's a conversation with you and your muse." That's the philosophy we back: tools that respect human creativity while expanding what's possible. (Fun fact: Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" was built almost entirely around a Splice pack.) Proud to support Kakul and the Splice team as they reshape how music gets made. Read TIME's full profile: https://lnkd.in/djXVccvF