Kleiner Perkins backs transformative technology companies for the long haul, with the stated mission to be "the first call for entrepreneurs who want to change the world." The firm believes "venture is a non-scalable, boutique craft" and "an art and a craft, grounded in deep relationships with founders." Above all, the firm holds that "venture capital, above all else, is about investing in people," and is currently investing broadly across the AI landscape from early stage through growth.
A clear story articulating the motivation behind the business and the specific problem being solved; the 'Why' is the most important part of the pitch. The firm gravitates to problems framed around large, underserved, or mission-critical populations.
“Every startup should have a story that articulates the motivation behind the business and the problem it's trying to solve” — The Roadmap for Pitching a Venture Capital Firm
“The most important slide in a pitch deck is the 'Why'” — Eric Feng
“These are the hospitals, schools, stores, and other small & mid-sized businesses that are mission-critical to our local communities, and cyberattacks on them are increasing at an alarming rate.” — Lucas Oliveira
“While blockchains are easy to write to by design, reading this data in an efficient and scalable way is hard.” — Allium: The blockchain data platform
“For 85 million American homeowners, the cheapest source of capital is often one they already possess.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
A solution where the hard, defensible work is translating deep human or scientific expertise into reliable software/products — not merely wrapping a model. Architecture and ease-of-use that lower adoption barriers are valued.
“The hardest part is not the model. It is translating deep human expertise into software that can operate reliably.” — Poetic: Turning Enterprise Procedures into Evolving Software
“Voice is the most natural way humans communicate. But making real-time voice interactions seamless and lifelike has eluded AI.” — Ilya Fushman
“NewLimit's approach is conceptually straightforward and deeply technical. They run the largest experiments in the field, and use the resulting data to train frontier AI models.” — Ilya Fushman
“I've found it easy to underestimate the power of 'ease of use' in infrastructure.” — Bucky Moore
A genuinely large and ideally expanding market — the firm prefers therapeutic/opportunity sizes that are an order of magnitude larger than incumbents, and supports market claims with concrete capital/usage figures. Market size is one of the hardest things to get right.
“Rather than targeting narrow disease, their incredible team...is working toward treating aging that affects us all, presenting a therapeutic opportunity 100X larger than ever before.” — NewLimit: Adding healthy years to each human life
“As of May 2024, $145B in capital sits in the two major stablecoins Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT) alone, up from $500M at the end of 2019.” — Allium: The blockchain data platform
“Inference is already a $100B+ market and one of the fastest growing areas of AI spend.” — Aditya Naganath
Evidence of real pull with an existing customer base — passionate, loyal customers, marquee logos, strong revenue/run-rate, and concrete performance results that exceed alternatives. Deep daily usage is treated as a durable signal.
“careful attention is paid towards traction with an existing customer base” — The Roadmap for Pitching a Venture Capital Firm
“It's extremely rare to see the level of passion & loyalty that Huntress has built among its community of customers and partners, and it became clear during our diligence that they've earned it.” — Lucas Oliveira
“Poetic reached an eight-figure run rate and became profitable in 2025 with just four people.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
“Allium has built the industry-leading blockchain data platform, and earned the trust of customers like Visa, Stripe, Brevan Howard Digital, and Phantom.” — Allium: The blockchain data platform
“In one deployment, a major insurer saw Poetic perform one of its most demanding processes with accuracy that exceeded its own human team.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
Above all the firm invests in people: founders with genuine belief in their mission, relevant pedigree/expertise in the space, foresight ahead of the market, and the patience and conviction to execute. They want true entrepreneurs, not transactional operators.
“Venture capitalists are not bankers; they want to work with entrepreneurs who believe in what they are doing” — The Roadmap for Pitching a Venture Capital Firm
“venture capital, above all else, is about investing in people” — Eric Feng
“Founders Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig had the foresight to anticipate a future shaped by autonomy and intelligent mobility well before it was mainstream.” — Mamoon Hamid
“She waited until the underlying technology was genuinely ready. That patience and conviction are quintessentially Markie.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
“That kind of talent density is nearly impossible to manufacture, and when you see it, you pay attention.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
A model that is affordable/accessible to its target customer and architecturally differentiated for efficiency and margins; the firm accepts that models evolve, but rewards capital efficiency and cost-aware architecture (especially amid scrutiny of AI token spend).
“VCs recognize that business models can change overtime” — The Roadmap for Pitching a Venture Capital Firm
“At a moment when companies like Uber are openly questioning whether ballooning AI token spend is worth it, Poetic's architecture is a meaningful differentiator.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
“The team has built a managed security platform that delivers robust products & exceptional service, while remaining affordable for SMBs & their MSP partners.” — Lucas Oliveira
A defensible position via a structural gap incumbents ignore, a hard technical problem only this team can solve, or a workload-specific platform that fragments out a generic market. Make defensibility explicit and concrete.
“The best security tools have historically been built for large enterprises, not for them.” — Huntress: Cybersecurity for the 99%
“We believe inference is fragmenting into platforms optimized for the shape of a specific workload.” — Aditya Naganath
“If anyone was going to crack long-term memory for AI systems, it would be this team.” — Leigh Marie Braswell
A great idea that has found its time — a clear inflection (especially AI as a once-in-a-generation, electricity-like shift) that makes the opportunity possible now. Timing is treated as one of the most powerful forces in any pitch.
“there's nothing more powerful than a great idea that has found its time” — The Roadmap for Pitching a Venture Capital Firm
“We believe real-time AI is the next major computing shift, and Cartesia is positioned to lead this transformation.” — Ilya Fushman
“The highest growth workload of all is agents, and two tailwinds make Sail's position stronger: compute is going heterogeneous...and more cost-efficient open-source models are getting good enough for enterprise adoption.” — Aditya Naganath
“Language models upend this constraint...their ability to lower the barrier to adoption of AI to near-zero.” — Bucky Moore
A genuine company-building partnership framed around making history and building for the long haul, not a transactional capital request. The firm sees venture as a non-scalable, boutique craft and wants to be the first call. Pitch belief and ambition, not just a number.
“Our most important focus is our mission — to be the first call for entrepreneurs who want to change the world.” — Back to the future
“We believe that venture is a non-scalable, boutique craft.” — Back to the future
“We'll focus on early stage investing, where we can partner with incredible founders and help them build the foundations of their business.” — Back to the future
“venture is an art and a craft, grounded in deep relationships with founders” — Kleiner Perkins Team
“Founders Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig had the foresight to anticipate a future shaped by autonomy and intelligent mobility well before it was mainstream.”
“We believe real-time AI is the next major computing shift, and Cartesia is positioned to lead this transformation.”
“The most important slide in a pitch deck is the 'Why'”
“The hardest part is not the model. It is translating deep human expertise into software that can operate reliably.”
“In a world where agents are about to become a primary unit of software, the infrastructure that powers them will be foundational.”