Founded & Funded
Listen to conversations between Madrona investors and entrepreneurs, founders, and startup personalities who talk about some of the key moments in building a company. Designed to give would-be founders and others interested in working with or for startups a view into the struggle and the lessons learned, these conversations are informal and informative.
With more than 25 years of investing in early-stage technology companies, Madrona has worked with founders from day one to help build their company for the long run. We invest in seed and Series A companies in the Pacific Northwest building across the information technology spectrum and in Acceleration (B and beyond) stage companies building with AI, regardless of geography.
- Update frequency
- every 12 days
- Average duration
- 31 minutes
- Episodes
- 104
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
IA40 Spotlight: Credo AI's Navrina Singh on ‘AI-First, Ethics Forward’ Responsible AI
In this week’s IA40 Spotlight Episode, Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Credo AI Founder and CEO Navrina Singh. Founded in 2020, Credo’s intelligent responsible AI governance platform helps com…
Acquired Hosts Ben and David on Getting Started at Madrona and Tom Alberg’s Legacy
This week, we’re excited to release a special live episode recorded during the community event portion of the Madrona 2023 annual meeting. Managing Director Matt McIlwain talks with Madrona Alumni an…
Common Room's Viraj Mody on Building Community, Foundation Models and Being Relentless
Madrona Managing Director Soma dives into the world of intelligent applications and generative AI with Common Room Co-founder and CTO Viraj Mody. Madrona first invested in Common Room in 2020 — and …
Investor Spotlight with Matt McIlwain
Get to know Madrona Managing Partner Matt McIlwain. Learn where he gets his spark to work with entrepreneurs, what he looks for in founders, where the opportunities lay for founders when it comes to …
Leaf Logistics CEO Anshu Prasad on Applying AI to Freight and Transportation Logistics
In this episode of Founded & Funded, partner Aseem Datar talks with Leaf Logistics Co-founder and CEO Anshu Prasad. Leaf is applying AI to the complexities of the freight and transportation industry,…
Lexion's Gaurav Oberoi on Applying AI to Change an Industry
In this week's IA40 Spotlight Episode of Founded & Funded, Investor Elisa La Cava talks to Lexion Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Oberoi. Lexion was one of the first spinouts from AI2, and Madrona invested…
Magnify's Josh Crossman on Incubating a Startup and Bringing AI to the Customer Experience
In this episode, investor Elisa La Cava talks with Josh Crossman, CEO of Magnify, which was incubated at Madrona Venture Labs. Josh was actually recruited by Madrona Venture Labs to help launch a bus…
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 …
IA40 Spotlight: dbt Labs Founder Tristan Handy on the modern data stack, partnerships, and creating community
In this week's IA40 Spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona partner Jon Turow talks with dbt Labs Founder and CEO Tristan Handy. Here at Madrona, we just announced our 2022 IA40, and dbt Labs …
Data Visionary Bob Muglia on the Modern Data Stack and Lessons from Snowflake
In this week's episode which is leading up to our Intelligent Applications Summit on November 2nd, Soma speaks with Bob Muglia. Bob has thought deeply about the Modern Data Stack and they speak about…
IA40 Spotlight: Fivetran CEO George Fraser on Data Replication and Connectors
This week Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu talks with Fivetran Co-founder and CEO George Fraser. Fivetran is fundamentally a data replication company — that’s how George explains it. But the company actua…
Stack Co-Founder and CEO Will Rush on Teen Crypto Investing
This week, Investor Aseem Datar is talking with Will Rush, co-founder and CEO of Stack, a teen crypto platform to educate a young crypto-curious generation — and their parents — about responsible inv…
Battlesnake Founder Brad Van Vugt on Creating Community Through Programming Competitions
This week, Investor Maria Gilfoyle talks to Brad Van Vugt, founder and CEO of Battlesnake, a multiplayer programming game for experienced web developers where your code is your controller. Battlesnak…
IA40 Spotlight: Tesorio Co-founders Carlos Vega and Fabio Fleitas on Automating Accounts Receivable
In this IA40 spotlight episode, Managing Director Hope Cochran talks with Tesorio Co-founders Carlos Vega and Fabio Fleitas about getting finance teams out of the world of manual, error-prone and ine…
IA40 Spotlight: Cresta Co-founder and CEO Zayd Enam on Using AI to Empower People to be More Productive
We've all struggled with call center experiences. Madrona's Ishani Ummat talks with Cresta Co-founder and CEO Zayd Enam about the unique angle Cresta takes to leverage AI to drive a better customer e…
CommerceIQ's Guru Hariharan on Pivoting When You're in the Wrong Market
In this episode of Founded and Funded, Managing Director Scott Jacobson is talking with CommerceIQ CEO Guru Hariharan. CommerceIQ is a retail e-commerce management platform that automates and unifies…
Top Tier's David York on Limited Partners, Market Conditions
In this episode of Founded and Funded, we stray a little from our typical format to answer some questions that often come up in discussions between founders and our investors. Madrona Managing Direct…
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 payme…
IA40 Winner Spotlight: Snorkel Co-founder Alex Ratner on data-centric AI, culture, and 'one of the most historic opportunities for growth in AI'
In this episode of Founded and Funded, we spotlight IIA40 winner Snorkel AI. Managing Director Tim Porter not only talks with Snorkel Co-founder and CEO Alex Ratner all about data-centric AI and prog…