Why We Started Ventana

AI changed how companies scale

We have spent the past decade as growth investors in technology companies, through a stretch when the playbook for scaling was written largely by venture capital: raise big, burn fast, grow at all costs. That approach produced generational companies, but we believe the next ones will be built differently.

AI has rewritten the economics of building a startup. A small team with the right product can now do what once required hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars. Companies are growing with a fraction of the people and capital they once needed, and the gap widens every year. Efficient scaling is no longer a compromise; it is a superpower. It means owning more of the company you built, focusing on your customers rather than your burn rate, and reaching every inflection point with a wide range of options. It is also what makes these businesses durable – they do not depend on the next round to survive.

As model performance converges, the advantage shifts from the technology to the industries it is applied to. Today, 22% of firms in professional services, finance, and tech report using AI in core work. However, the rest of the economy, which makes up roughly 79% of GDP and includes construction, logistics, public sector, real estate, and waste among other sectors, sits at 6% (Stanford HAI AI Index, 2026). We believe these industries are overlooked and are where AI-native companies can own the core workflow and build businesses that compound for decades.

What stops a frontier lab or an incumbent from doing this? In overlooked industries the answer tends to be structural. The businesses themselves spend one to two percent of revenue on technology, making the ROI on building and maintaining it themselves unattractive. Frontier labs earn more powering the ecosystem than competing with the customers building on their models. Incumbents lack a data architecture designed for AI workflows and moving from seat-based pricing threatens their core business. What is left are new leaders that own the core workflow, with outcome data, industry depth, and hard-won distribution that compound every year.

More ways to win than an IPO

M&A now represents 61% of technology exits, up from 18% a decade ago, and the most valuable companies are frequently the ones their customers cannot imagine living without. The old model treated an IPO as the only finish line worth running toward and treated everything else as falling short. We see it differently. Extraordinary outcomes can take many forms, and founders who scale efficiently get to lead their industry on their own terms. Our job is to help build the kind of business acquirers compete for, so that the choice of when, and to whom, belongs to the founder.

The mentors who shaped Ventana

Starting Ventana meant leaving firms we admired to bet on ourselves and on each other. We met in 2016 at Sumeru Equity Partners, the growth equity firm spun out of Silver Lake, and continued our growth investing careers at Avenir and Tidemark. We have been partners and friends across all of those years, and it became clear that now was the moment to build something of our own. To the mentors and partners who taught us the craft, showed us what building a firm truly takes, and advised us on our own launch, thank you.

The window between breakout and buyout

As our prior firms grew, we repeatedly passed on the early-growth companies we most wanted to back, not because they weren’t exceptional, but because they had become too small for our funds. These are the companies we love: founder-led and quietly compounding. Venture capital needs IPO-scale outcomes; private equity needs control. Neither fits a founder-led company growing quickly and efficiently. That is the window between breakout and buyout: minority capital that fully funds the plan while founders stay in control. Ventana, Spanish for “window,” is built for precisely that opening.

The name carries a second meaning for us. It comes from the Ventana Wilderness, the redwood forest that sits between our hometowns of Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. Redwoods are deeply rooted, remarkably resilient, and built to stand for centuries. We could think of no better emblem for the companies we back, or for the partnership behind them.

The partner we built Ventana to be

When capital is no longer the constraint, the choice of partner is critical. Founders need an investor who knows their industry cold, recruits exceptional leaders, helps pressure-test growth plans, and opens doors to customers and advisors. We built Ventana to be that partner. We invest in fewer companies so we can go deeper with each one. Every founder we back gets the full resources of our team, our networks, and our conviction, along with a community of accomplished operators who have built and scaled companies themselves. We show up as informed believers in a business, not tourists passing through, and we work to earn our founders’ trust as their most impactful investor.

The values we built this partnership on are the ones we bring to every company we back: we earn your trust, show our work, bring an owner’s mindset, and win together. We have spent a decade holding each other to them, and we intend to be the same partner to our founders that we have been to each other.

The window is open – let’s get to work.

Kevin Cheng & Vinay Kumar
Co-Founders & Partners, Ventana