Welcoming Matt Kraning to Menlo Ventures: A Builder for the AI Era
I’m thrilled to welcome Matt Kraning as our newest investing partner at Menlo Ventures. He’ll focus on investments in AI, enterprise SaaS, national defense, and cybersecurity—areas where his rare blend of deep technical expertise and founder experience gives him a powerful edge.
Before joining Menlo, Matt co-founded Expanse and served as its CTO, where he helped create the category of AI-driven attack surface management—making Expanse one of the early AI-first companies in cybersecurity. The company quickly became trusted by Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and every branch of the U.S. military. That journey culminated in a $1.25 billion acquisition by Palo Alto Networks in 2020.
That connection is meaningful to me personally. I led the Series B investment in Palo Alto Networks and served on its board through its IPO. I saw what it takes to build a generational cybersecurity company—technical brilliance, relentless customer focus, and the discipline to scale. Matt brought all of that to Expanse, and I know he’ll bring the same rigor to his work with founders at Menlo. In fact, Matt also brings a decade of advisory and investment experience, with over 50 investments, including unicorns like Peregrine and Astranis. He personally led a $12M round for Wispr Flow. While new to full-time VC, Matt’s combined experience as a founder, investor, and advisor uniquely positions him to make an immediate impact at Menlo.
Why Now?
Matt’s arrival couldn’t come at a more pivotal moment. AI is reshaping how businesses are built. Startups aren’t just incorporating AI—they’re being architected around it. But because this shift is so new, founders can’t rely on the pattern-matching of past generations. There’s no standard playbook for building or scaling an AI-native company.
This is where Matt stands out. He’s one of the rare investors who’s actually done it. He’s built in the AI era, navigated the ambiguity, and scaled a company in uncharted territory. He understands the complexity of building AI systems, pricing novel technologies, and launching into undefined markets—and he brings that insight to the boardroom. For technical founders, there’s no substitute for that kind of lived experience.
We Were Ready When the Future Arrived: Technical Founders Deserve Technical Partners
Long before AI captured headlines, we saw its potential to transform industries. We made a deliberate choice to build our team for this future.
That meant going beyond updating our thesis. We built a team of investors—including founders, technologists, and operators—who’ve scaled transformative businesses and brought real-world perspectives to the table. People like:
- Tim Tully, former CTO of Splunk, who led its transition to an AI-powered cloud platform
- Joff Redfern, former CPO of Atlassian and VP of Product at LinkedIn, who scaled AI-driven collaboration tools
- Deedy Das, founding engineer at Glean, who built a leading AI-native enterprise search platform
- Johnny Hu, a Harvard Ph.D. investing at the intersection of AI and life sciences
With Matt now part of the team, we’re reinforcing our commitment to the next generation of technically ambitious founders—those navigating the frontier of AI, security, and enterprise innovation. That commitment is reflected in the companies we’ve backed, including AI leaders like Anthropic, Abnormal, Typeface, and Neon—startups redefining everything from infrastructure to applications.
Matt is a builder at heart—drawn to hard technical problems and energized by the unknown. We’re lucky to have him on our team. If you’re building something bold in AI, cybersecurity, or enterprise software, we’d love to hear from you.
At Menlo, we’re all in on AI—and adding Matt is like being dealt pocket aces. It’s a rare advantage, and we’re thrilled to have him at the table.
Welcome to Menlo, Matt!
