Facts
- HQ
- Madrona
- Sectors
- Financial Services
- Founded
- 1995
- Employees
- 135
- Stage
- Seed
- Last fund
- MADRONA VENTURE FUND X, L.P. · $489.6M · 2025 SEC Form D
- Funds raised
- 10 funds SEC Form D filings
- Total capital
- $1.7B SEC Form D filings
Move Inc., operator of Realtor.com, leads $12M Series A in Seattle–Austin marketing startup Evocalize
Evocalize, a Seattle and Austin startup that helps brands with paid digital marketing, raised $12 million in a Series A led by Move Inc., operator of Realtor.com, which has been a customer for over five years. The company was founded in 2013 by CEO Matthew Marx and co-founder Kumar Srinivasan; additional investors include Second Century Ventures, Habanero Ventures and Madrona Venture Group.
Highspot raises $248M Series F at $3.5B valuation as remote-selling demand surges
Seattle-based sales enablement startup Highspot raised $248 million in a Series F at a $3.5 billion valuation, driven by increased demand for remote-selling tools as the pandemic shifted sales work online.
Doorstead launches Seattle service as SF-based property-management startup with $12.5M Series A expands nationally
Doorstead, a San Francisco property-management startup founded by former Uber employees, has launched service in the Seattle region as it expands nationally; the company raised $12.5 million in a 2022 Series A and manages just under $1 billion in assets.
SeekOut raises $115M, valuation tops $1B to expand recruiting and internal-employee products
Seattle startup SeekOut raised $115 million to push its valuation past $1 billion, becoming a unicorn, and will use the funds to expand recruiting and internal-employee products. Its recruiting platform, used by over 1,000 companies, aggregates data on 700+ million candidates, has built-in diversity filters, and reports ARR of $25–$50 million after tripling in nine months.
Rec Room raises $145M led by Coatue, valuing the Seattle VR startup at $3.5B
Seattle-based Rec Room raised $145 million in a funding round led by Coatue Management, bringing its valuation to $3.5 billion after a prior $100 million raise in March 2021; the cross-platform social VR app saw rapid user growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brian Goldfarb named Tenable CMO; Elizabeth Hamren becomes Discord COO; Kurt DelBene confirmed as VA CIO; Madrona adds three strategic directors
Several tech industry hires and appointments: Brian Goldfarb is CMO at Tenable; Elizabeth Hamren is COO at Discord; Kurt DelBene confirmed as VA CIO; Madrona Venture Group added three strategic directors; Christina Mautz joined Panopto.
Madrona Venture Group raises $120M Fund VII Extension to support 10–12 portfolio companies from its 2018 $300M fund
Madrona Venture Group has raised a $120 million Fund VII Extension Fund from prior investors to provide follow-on capital for 10–12 companies from its 2018 $300 million Fund VII, responding to larger, faster rounds in today’s frothy venture market.
Madrona and Goldman Sachs Publish Inaugural IA40 of Top 40 Private AI Business-App Startups; Four Seattle Firms Included
Madrona Venture Group and Goldman Sachs released the inaugural Intelligent Applications Top 40 (IA40) list of private companies building business AI applications, based on votes from 40 venture firms plus Amazon and Microsoft and narrowed by 50 judges from over 220 nominees. Four Seattle-area companies — Amperity, OctoML, SeekOut, and one unnamed here — made the list; Amperity recently raised $100 million to reach unicorn status and OctoML raised $85 million.
Executive Interview: #Madrona Venture Group - Steve Singh - The #Phocuswright Conference
Steve Singh, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group LLC Interviewer Charuta Fadnis, SVP, Research and Product Strategy, Phocuswright Inc. He turned the otherwise drab world of expense management on its ear, and now he hopes to take his game plan ("great team, great products with a great culture") to new heights. Steve Singh tells us where we’re all headed.
Scott Jacobson
Scott Jacobson is a Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group, where he has spent over 14 years helping early-stage technology entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest build and scale their companies. Scott is on the boards of companies like Rover, Flexe, and CommerceIQ, and focuses much of his energy on consumer businesses or business technologies that have a significant consumer component. Prior to joining Madrona, Scott worked at Amazon, where he did two tours of duty, leading product management for Amazon’s 3rd-party seller platform and working on the launch of the original Kindle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
WhyLabs, an AI2 spinout led by CEO Alessya Visnjic, raises $10M and launches AI Observatory to monitor live ML models
WhyLabs, a Seattle startup spun out of AI2 and led by CEO Alessya Visnjic, raised $10 million and launched AI Observatory, a tool to monitor and diagnose live machine-learning models for anomalies and "model meltdowns." The platform offers an open-source library and real-time alerts, positioning WhyLabs as a Datadog-like monitoring service focused on backend ML/AI, and saw adoption by over a dozen organizations in its first week.
Echodyne wins $20M, five-year DHS CBP contract to expand EchoGuard radar deployment at U.S. borders
Echodyne won a $20 million, five-year contract from DHS Customs and Border Protection to expand deployment and explore new uses of its compact EchoGuard radars at U.S. borders and ports, after already delivering 30 systems under the IDIQ agreement.
OctoML Raises $85M Series C Led by Tiger Global to Expand ML Partnerships and Engineering Team
OctoML, a University of Washington spinout specializing in machine learning optimization, raised $85 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total to $132 million. The company plans to expand its partnerships with hardware and cloud vendors while nearly tripling its engineering team.
GeekWire Podcast: Qumulo CEO Bill Richter on Remote Work, Seattle Tech Pay Rise to $158K, and Qumulo’s $1.2B Valuation
GeekWire’s podcast interviews Qumulo CEO Bill Richter about post-pandemic remote work, trends in tech salaries (Seattle up 4.6% to $158,000; U.S. average down 1.1% to $152,000), and implications for hiring, cloud storage, and self-driving cars. Richter discusses Qumulo’s remote-work approach, decentralized decision-making by functional leaders, and the company’s $1.2 billion valuation from its latest funding round.
Tech pay, cloud trends, Kraken, and self-driving cars with Qumulo CEO Bill Richter
Everyone is closely monitoring the implications of remote work as we emerge from the pandemic, so it's no surprise that one of the most widely read stories on GeekWire this week — right behind the Titanic's disappearing bathtub and Facebook's potential name change — was a story on trends in tech salaries. Two big trends stood out in the report from jobs site Hired: Average tech salaries in Seattle are up 4.6% from last year, to $158,000, second only to the Bay Area, which saw its average dip slightly to $165,000. Nationwide, the average U.S. tech salary fell 1.1% to…
Kirby Winfield, ex-founder and exec, raises $15M for Ascend.vc to back Pacific Northwest early-stage startups
Kirby Winfield, a longtime Seattle startup leader who experienced burnout after multiple exits, founded Ascend.vc to invest in early-stage Pacific Northwest tech companies and raised a $15 million first fund after recovering his health and shifting from founder roles to venture investing.
Convoy appoints John Morrow as general counsel effective Nov. 1; ex-AWS VP Steven Shure joins Neeva as chief business officer
Convoy named John Morrow as general counsel effective Nov. 1, following multiple legal leadership departures in 2021; Morrow previously served at Apptio and Paymentus. Separately, former AWS VP Steven Shure joined ad-free search startup Neeva as chief business officer and will remain based in Seattle.
Spice AI raises $1M pre-seed led by Madrona; Nat Friedman and Mark Russinovich invest
Spice AI, a Seattle startup founded by former Microsoft Azure engineers Luke Kim and Phillip LeBlanc, launched an open-source project to help developers build real-time learning AI apps and raised a $1 million pre-seed led by Madrona with investments from GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Microsoft Azure CTO Mark Russinovich. The company has no paying customers yet but is backed by several VCs and positions itself to simplify creating intelligent applications.
Game Jolt co-founders Yaprak and David DeCarmine raise $2.6M seed round led by Acequia Capital
Seattle-based Game Jolt, founded by husband-and-wife Yaprak and David DeCarmine, raised a $2.6 million seed round led by Acequia Capital to grow its social platform for Gen Z and Gen Alpha gamers. The platform hosts over 40,000 communities—some with more than 500,000 active members—where users share fan art, gameplay recordings, guides, and reviews.
Microsoft acquires Seattle OKR startup Ally to integrate into Microsoft Viva; terms undisclosed
Microsoft has acquired Seattle-based OKR startup Ally, founded three years ago, to integrate its goal-tracking capabilities into Microsoft Viva and other products; financial terms were not disclosed.
Yoodli unveils AI speech-coaching platform, opens beta waitlist and raises $1M pre-seed from AI2 and Madrona
Seattle startup Yoodli launched an AI-enabled platform that analyzes users' speech delivery and offers improvement tips, and is opening a beta waitlist while announcing a $1 million pre-seed round. The spinout from AI2 is founded by Ehsan Hoque, Esha Joshi and Varun Puri, who aim to help people communicate more effectively and access opportunities.
Esper raises $60M Series C from Insight Partners to scale DevOps platform for company-owned Android device fleets
Seattle-area DevOps startup Esper raised a $60 million Series C led by Insight Partners to grow its platform for managing fleets of company-owned Android devices across retail, healthcare, education and other industries; the company has 200+ customers, raised $30M in May, expects 2021 revenue to quadruple and is not yet profitable.
Read, founded by ex-Placed team members David Shim, Elliott Waldron and Rob Williams, raises $10M seed to analyze faces and voices on video calls
Seattle startup Read — founded by David Shim, Elliott Waldron, and Rob Williams — raised $10 million in seed funding for software that uses AI to analyze participants' facial expressions and voice during video calls to measure engagement and sentiment in real time.
Spotnana raises $34M Series A led by Madrona and ICONIQ to modernize business-travel software
Spotnana, a business-travel software startup founded by Sarosh Waghmar and Shikhar Agarwal, raised $34 million in a Series A led by Madrona Venture Group and ICONIQ to offer an API-friendly, integrated travel platform with consumption-based pricing. The company, chaired by Concur co-founder Steve Singh and with former Expedia CFO Greg Stanger on its board, serves about 50 corporate customers and aims to modernize booking, spending visibility, and integrations with HR and expense systems.
Madrona leads $1.5M round for Battlesnake, the competitive coding game with a 10,000-developer community
Battlesnake, a Victoria, B.C.–based company that runs a competitive coding game used by mid-career programmers to experiment with new technologies, raised $1.5 million led by Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group to expand its reach. The community grew to about 10,000 developers after moving online during the pandemic and has hosted events including an AWS internship tournament.
Fund History
People
See all 15-
Bill Ruckelshaus Founder, Founder and Strategic Director
-
Paul Goodrich Founder
-
Steve Singh Founder, Co-founder of Concur and Managing Director
