Menlo Ventures is one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture firms, founded in 1976. It went all in on AI by leading Anthropic's Series D in 2024 with a bet-the-firm check of more than US$500M and investing in every round since. Its AI-era portfolio spans frontier models, inference, coding, music, voice and healthcare AI.
Menlo's first Anthropic investment came in 2023, pre-product and pre-revenue. A year later it led the lab's Series D — a bet-the-firm check of more than US$500M, the largest in Menlo's history, structured largely through an SPV — and has invested in every round since. Menlo calls this its 'flag-planting moment: Menlo was going ALL IN on AI.'
Menlo operates its self-described 'Three Stages of Early': Inception, Venture and the Inflection growth stage. Its June 2026 US$3B raise pairs Menlo Ventures XVII (seed to Series A) with Menlo Inflection IV (Series B and beyond), letting the firm back founders from first institutional check through every later round — as it did with Lovable (co-led the US$330M Series B, led the US$400M Series C) and Wispr (led Series A then a US$280M Series B).
Launched with Anthropic in July 2024, the ~US$100M Menlo Anthology Fund has grown to ~US$250M deployed across 60+ early-stage AI companies, giving the firm early access to frontier talent and credits for Claude. Early exits include Graphite (acquired by Cursor), Astrix Security (Cisco) and Fintool (Microsoft).
Menlo frames its AI mandate across the full stack: infrastructure and frontier models plus AI-native applications across enterprise, healthcare and consumer markets. Its AI-era book spans model-adjacent research (Ndea, Axiom), inference and serverless compute (Fireworks, Modal, Neon, Pinecone), and breakout applications in coding (Lovable, Graphite), music (Suno), voice input (Wispr Flow) and healthcare AI (OpenEvidence, Chai Discovery, Function Health).
The firm operates from offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco. Its AI-era investing is led by a six-person team — Matt Murphy, Tim Tully, Venky Ganesan, Deedy Das, Matt Kraning and Joff Redfern.
Menlo Ventures' disclosed AI-era positions — its own 'ALL IN on AI' book spanning frontier-adjacent research, AI infrastructure, and AI-native applications across enterprise, healthcare and consumer markets. Sourced from menlovc.com/portfolio and Menlo announcements; each company verified on the firm's site.
Menlo's flag-planting AI bet: first invested 2023 pre-product, led the 2024 Series D with >US$500M, invested in every round since; stake worth ~US$14B.
Building frontier AI that blends intuitive pattern recognition with formal reasoning into a unified architecture.
Building a self-improving, superintelligent reasoner, starting with an AI mathematician.
Vector database and retrieval platform powering retrieval-augmented generation for AI applications.
A global AI inference cloud enabling teams to build, tune and scale highly optimized generative AI applications.
Serverless compute platform for running ML inference, fine-tuning and batch jobs.
Multi-cloud serverless Postgres built for edge and AI workloads; acquired by Databricks.
Makes global compute findable and trains state-of-the-art models through distributed training across clusters.
A unified gateway to hundreds of AI models from leading providers; Stripe announced plans to acquire OpenRouter.
Natural-language app-building platform; Menlo co-led the US$330M Series B and led the US$400M Series C.
AI-powered developer productivity platform for creating, reviewing and merging smaller code changes; acquired by Cursor.
AI music creation platform; Menlo led Suno's US$250M Series C at a US$2.45B valuation in November 2025.
Voice-to-text AI that aims to replace the keyboard; Menlo led its Series A and its US$280M Series B at US$2B.
Evidence-based clinical AI giving clinicians cited answers at the point of care.
Builds AI that predicts and reprograms biochemical molecular interactions to accelerate therapeutics.
Membership platform pairing comprehensive lab testing with personalized AI-driven health insights.
Industrialized drug discovery using AI across biology and chemistry at scale.
Video AI company democratizing social media content creation for everyone.
Building a collaborative AI workspace for legal professionals pairing lawyer ingenuity with machine intelligence.
AI research company aiming to exponentially increase global access to mental healthcare.
AI-native security platform stopping sophisticated inbound attacks and detecting compromised accounts.
Leader in non-human identity (NHI) security; acquired by Cisco. (No public logo available — shown as placeholder.)
AI detection for educators, publishers, law firms, HR and foundations — 'stopping AI slop on the internet.'
AI interpretability research lab focused on understanding and intentionally designing advanced AI systems.
Open-source AI platform for autonomous software engineering development.
Menlo's best-known historical and non-AI positions, included for context on the firm's scale and mandate rather than as a complete list. All appear on menlovc.com.
Menlo cut a US$20M check in 2011 when Uber was valued at US$322M.
Pioneer of streaming TV; Menlo backed it before it became a household platform. (No public logo available — shown as placeholder.)
Online retailer of prescription glasses and contact lenses, conceived as an alternative to overpriced eyewear.
Voice assistant company spun out of SRI International; acquired by Apple in 2010.
Research-based biopharmaceutical company discovering and commercializing medicines for unmet medical needs.
Because entry price rewarded conviction: Menlo first invested in Anthropic in 2023, pre-product and pre-revenue, then led the 2024 Series D with more than US$500M — its largest check ever, structured largely through an SPV — and has invested in every round since. The stake is now worth roughly US$14B (reported July 2026), a sequencing edge over Lightspeed's 2025 Series E lead and Sequoia's 2026 entry.
The Anthology Fund (July 2024, ~US$100M with Anthropic) is alliance and antenna at once: portfolio companies get Claude credits, Anthropic gets a deal funnel, and Menlo gets an early window on frontier-adjacent startups — 60+ funded, deployed capital grown toward US$250M. Early exits validate it: Graphite sold to Cursor, Astrix Security to Cisco, Fintool to Microsoft.
Because the AI mandate needed every stage funded at once. The firm's largest-ever raise pairs Menlo Ventures XVII (seed–Series A) with Inflection IV (Series B and beyond), replicating in fund structure what it did deal-by-deal: co-leading Lovable's US$330M Series B then leading its US$400M Series C, and leading Wispr's Series A before its US$280M Series B at a US$2B valuation.
For a firm founded in 1976, less a pivot than a refocus. The legacy book — Uber (a US$20M check in 2011 at a US$322M valuation, roughly 6% if post-money), Siri, Roku, Warby Parker — produced 85+ public and 170+ M&A exits that fund the AI era. The June 2026 US$3B close, the largest in firm history, was framed explicitly as going 'ALL IN on AI'.