Gradient
VC Fund
Mountain View, United States
Gradient is a VC fund in Mountain View focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Gradient is the seed fund designed for founders in AI.
- Total investments:
- 388
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 50%
- Fund size:
- $220M
- Last fund:
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Gradient invests in
Stages Gradient invests in
Countries Gradient invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
| See all 7 contacts → | |||
Round size
- Seed
- $2.6M–$9.8M
- Series A
- $8.2M–$27M
- Series B
- $20M–$58M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 112 (29%)
- Artificial Intelligence 81 (21%)
- Information Technology 45 (12%)
- SaaS 37 (10%)
- FinTech 28 (7%)
Stage
- Seed 155 (40%)
- Series A 86 (22%)
- Series B 36 (9%)
- Pre-Seed 25 (6%)
- Venture - Series Unknown 10 (3%)
Country
- United States 167 (43%)
- The Netherlands 8 (2%)
- Germany 7 (2%)
- Canada 5 (1%)
- Singapore 5 (1%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Katy Engle
Talent Principal
|
Talent Principal | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Renee Delaplaine
Administrative Business Partner
|
Administrative Business Partner | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Vig Sachidananda
Investor
|
Investor | Total investments: 9 | Find email | |
Zach Patton
Head of Legal
|
Head of Legal | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Darian Shirazi
Managing Partner
|
Managing Partner | Total investments: 189 | Find email | |
| See all 7 team members → | ||||
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zeroset is an applied artificial intelligence research company that develops AI technologies and software products. The company conducts research in AI systems and builds tools for autonomous agents, including memory management infrastructure. It develops AI software designed to support agent performance and long-term information retention. | $5.2M / Pre-Seed / Oct 06, 2026 | ||
| Photon provides dependable, low-latency communications infrastructure and agent execution. designed to grow in response to actual consumer need. | $4.5M / Seed / Oct 01, 2026 | ||
| Feather is building a general-purpose robotics platform for Physical AI companies and manufacturing integrators to successfully deploy and scale their labor solutions. Our hardware ecosystem is designed to enable profitable business models for our partners. We prioritize a long lifespan, low maintenance, and sound unit economics. | $7.6M / Pre-Seed / Sep 24, 2026 | ||
| Polyphron builds an autonomous tissue foundry platform for scalable, reproducible human tissue manufacturing. The company uses induced pluripotent stem cells, AI models, and automation to engineer graftable human tissues across cortical, cardiac, and other tissue contexts. Its platform integrates developmental single-cell atlases, high-throughput3D tissue experiments, and active learning to optimize tissue structure and polarity. Polyphron develops biomanufacturing systems for difficult-to-produce proteins, high-fidelity safety and efficacy screening tissues, and immune-compatible iPSC-derived grafts intended to restore tissue function and support regenerative medicine applications. | $20M / Seed / Sep 17, 2026 | ||
| BackOps AI develops software that automates operational workflows for logistics and supply chain teams using artificial intelligence. | $42M / Series B / Sep 16, 2026 | ||
| Arga Labs develops software testing and validation infrastructure for AI agents and applications. The company provides real-world sandbox environments that replicate third-party services, APIs, command-line interfaces, and MCPs, allowing developers to test software without affecting production systems. Its platform provides digital twins, isolatedsandboxes, production-informed scenarios, automated test runs, and detailed evidence of provider calls, responses, latency, and side effects. Arga also supports pull request validation, browser-based testing, security testing, and autonomous agent testing through deterministic environments. The platform integrates with development and observability tools such as GitHub, Jira, Linear, Sentry, and PostHog to incorporate application context into testing workflows. Arga Labs serves software development teams building applications and AI agents that interact with external services. | $10M / Seed / Aug 26, 2026 | ||
| Axle is an open platform for consumer-permissioned insurance data. With Axle, companies can instantly verify insurance and monitor ongoing coverage, helping them create a frictionless experience for their customers and reduce operational risk through better-informed decisions. | $17.5M / Series A / Aug 11, 2026 | ||
| The agentic economy is here, but it cannot progress until AI agents can autonomously access and operate across real-world systems and services.Sapiom gives AI agents trusted access to the API economy.We provide the essential infrastructure (KYA, wallets, spending and usage controls, and multi-rail payments) to unlock secure, programmaticcommerce for the AI era.Built for the next era of commerce where agents buy, sell, and negotiate on our behalf.We're backed by world-class investors and are hiring exceptional engineers in SF to define the financial infrastructure for the agentic era.Learn more & join us: https://www.sapiom.ai | $35M / Series A / Aug 05, 2026 | ||
| Malachyte offers an intelligence platform that develops real-time individualization solutions. It offers real-time, cookie-free storefront customisation for consumer businesses. | $10M / Seed / Aug 05, 2026 | ||
| AI accounting for enterprise finance teams | $3.4M / Seed / Jul 08, 2026 | ||
| See all 388 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Gradient invest in?
Gradient invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 388 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What round sizes does Gradient invest in?
Gradient typically joins rounds of $2.6M–$9.8M at Seed, $8.2M–$27M at Series A and $20M–$58M at Series B. These are whole funding-round sizes, not Gradient's own check, which is rarely disclosed: the 10th–90th percentile of the confirmed public funding rounds Gradient took part in.
How do I contact Gradient?
Public channels for Gradient include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at Gradient?
The team at Gradient includes Katy Engle (Talent Principal), Renee Delaplaine (Administrative Business Partner) and Vig Sachidananda (Investor), among 7 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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