When I joined venture 2 years ago, everyone told me I was foolish to pick Menlo Ventures.

Today, research from the best Stanford professor of venture capital ranks Menlo as #3 in 2026, and #1 for <$25B in AUM, with 50 unicorns and only ~20 investors. These rankings rewards being early, leading, valuation, exits and recency. Rankings are just rankings, but it’s extremely rare for VC firms to change reputations so quickly. It’s a small milestone to celebrate.

Menlo has spent the last 5 years rebuilding the team with people who have built startups and long time investors. We built a culture around sticking to first principles while staying true to our roots of low volume high conviction bets. In the last few years, we have been fortunate to partner with Anthropic, OpenRouter, Lovable, Suno, Fireworks, Gimlet, Higgsfield, Wispr, Modal, Legora, OpenEvidence and they are really the stars of the show. And we’ve missed innumerably more.

However, in venture, you’re only as good as your next deal.