- Sri Pangulur began his personal syndicate whereas working as a gross sales govt in Silicon Valley.
- He parlayed that syndicate expertise to transition working in to enterprise capital at Tribe Capital.
Sri Pangulur embraced the after-work hustle to put money into early-stage startups. By day, he was a CloudFlare gross sales govt. But after work, he spent as much as 15 hours per week attending hackathons, meetups, and enterprise occasions to supply the following scorching startup.
There have been many instances when Pangulur simply jumped straight into chasing a deal after an extended day of labor. He recalled when his CloudFlare workforce closed a high-stakes deal late on a Friday on the finish of 1 / 4. But as a substitute of celebrating with this workforce, he met with a scorching seed stage firm.
“I used to be making an attempt to get into a fairly excessive profile seed spherical as nicely that had little or no allocation left within the deal,” he mentioned, including that he needed to actually beg to get a spot. After chatting with the CEO till midnight, Pangulur acquired into the deal.
He began his aspect hustle investing efforts by writing small checks however quickly discovered himself flooded with deal stream. He determined to formally create a syndicate known as Overtime VC, investing as much as $250,000 in seed and Series A rounds. Through Overtime, Pangulur invested practically $20 million in 65 corporations, with a deal with enterprise infrastructure and apps. Among these startups in his portfolio have been Abnormal Security, at the moment valued at $5.1 billion, and Airbyte, now valued at $1.5 billion.
Pangulur met Mayfield Fund managing accomplice Navin Chaddha by means of investing. In 2016, the pair met at a tech networking occasion and stored in contact, discussing business traits and collaborating on offers.
“This man will go locations,” Chaddha recalled of his first impressions of Pangulur. Seven years later, Pangulur joined Mayfield as a accomplice.
The path to VC
Born in Michigan and raised in Ohio, Pangulur grew up in a household of docs. He initially was pre-med at Case Western University, desiring to comply with in his household’s footsteps. But because the dot-com bubble brewed within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, Pangulur determined to pursue finance.
After school, he labored on the M&A workforce at KeyBanc Capital Markets after which joined Lehman Brothers, specializing in software program investments. He additionally acquired a style for enterprise capital at TeleSoft Partners, an early-stage agency, earlier than leaping to the working aspect.
Over the following decade, Pangulur labored in a spread of gross sales roles, finally touchdown at CloudFlare to guide one of many firm’s first gross sales groups in North America. At CloudFlare, he gained expertise promoting to CTOs and CISOs throughout varied corporations, from startups to the Fortune 500.
He additionally continued investing by means of his syndicate, Overtime VC, and introduced these firsthand experiences to the founders he suggested.
Pangulur helped founders with recruiting, answering questions like, “Who’s that first VP of gross sales you must rent? What does that profile seem like, and the way does that evolve over time as you scale?”
The Overtime enterprise stored scaling, after which he mentioned he contemplated whether or not he wished to work at one firm more often than not or work with many entrepreneurs full-time slightly than on the aspect.
“That’s once I had the conclusion that perhaps I ought to do enterprise, ” he mentioned.
‘Cooking’ on the Series B
Pangulur started elevating his personal enterprise fund primarily based on the success of his syndicate fund, Overtime VC. But just a few months into fundraising, he obtained an sudden supply from Tribe Capital, a VC agency that makes use of knowledge science to put money into crypto and software program startups.
With Tribe’s $1.6 billion property below administration, Pangulur was drawn to the thought of writing larger checks and advising founders as a board member. “I made a decision to take that leap,” he mentioned.
At Tribe, Pangulur constructed out the agency’s software program investing follow. With a deal with enterprise infrastructure and software-as-a-service, Pangulur led six offers, together with the gross sales intelligence startup Apollo, which is now valued at $1.6 billion.
Last September, Pangulur joined Mayfield. “I wasn’t actively trying to make a transfer,” he mentioned, however after working with Chaddha over time by means of Overtime and Tribe, Pangulur was intrigued at a brand new alternative to hitch the agency.
He and Chaddha met for an in-person catch-up within the fall of 2022. “I went into the assembly pondering it could be a standard catch-up,” Pangulur mentioned. “But that is when he informed me in regards to the alternative he sees available in the market for the Spring Fund.”
Mayfield is one among Silicon Valley’s oldest enterprise companies, with $3 billion in property below administration. While the agency has historically invested on the seed and Series A phases—it introduced its seventeenth fund of $580 million centered on seed and Series A in 2023 — there was nonetheless a spot available in the market for funding.
“Our Select/Spring Fund is geared toward founders who’re past the ideation stage, with a workforce, early product-market match, and preliminary market adoption,” mentioned Chaddha. “Their financing stage is often on the A chief or Series B.”
The agency first raised a $125 million Spring fund in 2016 to put money into its breakout portfolio corporations for follow-on investments. Last yr, Mayfield raised a Select III/Spring Fund of $375 million, aiming to focus the overwhelming majority of its investments on new exterior alternatives.
Pangulur was introduced in to co-lead the agency’s Select/Spring fund with Chaddha.
“He got here from a gross sales background,” Chaddha mentioned. “He’s investing at a stage the place there’s already product and clients— his go-to-market experience is his superpower.”
This is the stage “the place that you must get within the weeds, work with the founders, assist them do a few of that cooking,” Pangulur mentioned.
Earlier this month, Pangulur introduced two new investments he led: a $25 million Series B for billing infrastructure startup Orb and a $28 million Series B for TeamBridge, a workforce working software program startup.
Despite the general tepid funding market, Pangulur is optimistic. “The Spring Fund is a comparatively new initiative,” Pangulur mentioned. “I need us to be one of many first calls that a whole lot of founders name once they’re hitting that inflection between being at inception early stage to discovering these early components of product market match and go-to-market repeatability.”
