Chris Picardo
Chris Picardo is a Partner at Madrona Venture Group and serves as a board member or observer for several companies including Aizen Therapeutics, Archon Biosciences, Knock, and Ovation.io. He previously worked as an investor at Madrona Venture Group, a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, and held finance and analyst roles at Rockets of Awesome and MD Sass.
Palantir Alum Explains How AI is Used and Bought by the Federal Government
Nick LaRovere spent years at Palantir before co-founding Pryzm with friends, including a Lockheed Martin alum. And in this episode of Founded & Funded, Nick shares his inside account of how AI is actually being adopted inside the federal government, and what it takes to sell technology into that market. Pryzm is an AI-powered intelligence engine for government business development: it aggregates data across CRMs, email, Slack, and public procurement sources to help companies win contracts. Nick's argument is that by the time an opportunity appears on SAM.gov, the deal is already decided. In this episode, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo…
Building AI That Sells: Scaling Smarter with Luminance CEO Eleanor Lightbody
Entrepreneurs often ask: When do I know it's time to scale? Or, how do I lead when I wasn't the original founder? In this week's Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sits down with Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, who shares how she took a promising AI product and built a company culture, go-to-market motion, and product strategy that's scaled 6x in just two years. Eleanor's candor and tactical insights on hiring, selling, and navigating founder dynamics make this a must-listen. Transcript: https://www.madrona.com/building-ai-that-sells-scaling-smarter-with-luminance-ceo-eleanor-lightbody/ Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:29) Eleanor's Career Journey (03:22) Joining Luminance and Initial Challenges (05:46) Navigating CEO…
Archon's Jamie Lazarovits on Unlocking the Full Power of Antibodies With AI
What does it take to move from cutting-edge academic research to launching a biotech company that could transform medicine? In this week's episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sat down with Jamie Lazarovitz, CEO and co-founder of Archon Biosciences, to uncover the story behind their groundbreaking protein-based biologics and their unique Antibody Cages (AbCs). From bootstrapping deep tech investments as a student to navigating the challenges of commercializing revolutionary science, Jamie shares the pivotal moments, tough decisions, and key lessons that led to Archon's creation. This isn't just a story for biotech enthusiasts — every founder can…
IA40 Spotlight: A-Alpha Bio's David Younger on machine learning in biotech, building cross-functional teams
This week on Founded & Funded, Partner Chris Picardo is talking with A-Alpha Bio Co-founder and CEO David Younger for our first Intelligent Application 40 Spotlight episode of 2023. We announced the 2022 IA40 winners in October, and A-Alpha was the first biotech company to make the list, which was no surprise to us. As one of our portfolio companies, we know the work David and his team are doing at the intersections of biological and data/computer sciences will change the world — but having a group of judges agree with us makes us all the more certain. Protein interactions…
Sila Co-founder and CEO Shamir Karkal on Crypto and Web3
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo dives into the world of crypto and Web3 with Sila Co-Founder and CEO Shamir Karkal. Sila is a FinTech platform that provides payment infrastructure as a service and sits at the intersection of crypto rails and traditional financial services infrastructure — because as much as some people want to get away from the traditional financial system, crypto still needs to be able to plug into it. Shamir and Chris dive into the importance of this infrastructure, the ups and downs of the crypto market, the trends driving FinTech and…
Organizations
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Aizen Therapeutics Board Member 2024–present · current
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Institute for Protein Design Board Observer 2024–present · current
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Stealth Biotech Board Member 2024–present · current
Education
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Williams College Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Mathematics and English · 2009–2013
