Illuminate Ventures
VC Fund
Oakland, United States
Illuminate Ventures is a VC fund in Oakland focused on Software and Analytics. Illuminate’s focus is on finding, funding and accelerating great founders in the B2B/Enterprise cloud and mobile computing space. They focus on companies building SaaS applications as well as solutions that leverage data and mobility to improve business results. They seek innovative ideas led by talented teams – frequently bringing togetherdiverse perspectives that marry “creative destruction” with new technologies to solve old problems in new ways.Illuminate is typically a startup’s first institutional investor, but can also be a fit for an established company seeking its first equity financing. Their sweet spot is Series Seed rounds – filling the gap between angel capital and larger funding rounds of traditional VCs. When the timing is right, they collaborate with the best large-scale firms for the next round of financing, but they love lean start-ups that preserve flexibility in their early years.With three funds under management, Illuminate has been an early investor and board member in deep technology platforms like BrightEdge Technologies (SEO market leader), SaaS applications like Xactly Corporation (NYSE: XTLY) and early market innovators like Influitive (customer advocacy).
- Total investments:
- 70
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 30%
- Fund size:
- $27M
- Last fund:
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Illuminate Ventures invests in
Stages Illuminate Ventures invests in
Countries Illuminate Ventures invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
1 more contact available
Round size
- Seed
- $937k–$7M
- Series A
- $6.5M–$32M
- Series B
- $6.5M–$58M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 13 (19%)
- Analytics 11 (16%)
- SaaS 10 (14%)
- Information Technology 9 (13%)
- Artificial Intelligence 9 (13%)
Stage
- Seed 22 (31%)
- Series A 15 (21%)
- Series B 9 (13%)
- Funding Round 6 (9%)
- Pre-Seed 4 (6%)
Country
- United States 32 (46%)
- Canada 3 (4%)
- Germany 1 (1%)
- South Korea 1 (1%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cindy Padnos
Founder, Managing Partner
|
Founder, Managing Partner | Total investments: 63 | Find email | |
Jennifer Savage
Partner
|
Partner | Total investments: 2 | Find email | |
Rebecca Norlander
Business Advisory Council Member
|
Business Advisory Council Member | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Kathryn Marshall
CFO
|
CFO | Total investments: 0 | Find email |
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Brevity
|
At Brevity, our motto is "The game is won before it starts". Accelerate new hire ramp-up and increase quota attainment with AI-Powered Role Play. Streamline training and development with AI-powered scoring and feedback. Request a DEMO today at www.brevitypitch.com | Seed / Dec 18, 2024 | |
Provarity
|
PreSales Operations Management | $7M / Seed / Dec 09, 2024 | |
Contentstack
|
Contentstack™ – a leading Content Management System (CMS) and Digital Experience Platform (DXP) – allows organizations to manage content across all digital channels and create amazing digital experiences. Contentstack pioneered the headless CMS category and effortlessly handles large-scale, complex, and mission-critical deployments, whilesupporting real-world enterprise business processes and team collaboration. Contentstack's customer satisfaction is the highest in the industry and it is the preferred API-first CMS for SAP Cloud. Visit www.contentstack.com to see why marquee brands – including Best Buy, Chase, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Morningstar, Express, Miami HEAT, Shell, and Walmart – across the globe choose Contentstack. | $80M / Series C / Nov 15, 2022 | |
enmacc
|
enmacc is Europe’s fastest growing digital, OTC energy trading platform. Our platform digitalises the end-to-end professional energy trading process. Using enmacc allows participants to gain speed, efficiency and security when trading in energy markets. More than 340 companies, with over 1.600 active traders, are already taking advantage of enmaccand are utilising our continuously growing network of energy suppliers, industrial companies, energy trading houses and municipal utilities for trading in power & gas. All of our clients can benefit from increased market access, additional liquidity and other business development opportunities. enmacc customers can use three different trading screens: entender (sales trading) & entender pro (professional trading) – the world-leading Request-For-Quote (RFQ) technology for energy markets; enmarket – the OTC price screen and marketplace for one-click trading; and engreen – the state-of-the-art trading screen for Guarantees of Origin (GoOs). Complete documentation and audit-proof archiving of all trading activities on the platform take place automatically. The real-time credit check guarantees secure trading and processes for all participants. Complete documentation and audit-proof archiving of all trading activities on the platform take place automatically. The real-time credit check guarantees secure trading and processes for all participants. We do everything we can to make the daily work of energy traders and portfolio managers easier by enabling them to focus on the things that really matter. | Series B / Sep 28, 2022 | |
Jacobi
|
Jacobi is a next-generation intelligence platform for investment managers to customize and scale multi-asset portfolio design. Its risk and portfolio-construction tools enable practitioners to work and communicate through intuitive storyboards. Built with a multi-asset focus, their platform facilitates the transfer of manager insights, generatingbetter investment ideas and deeper levels of engagement between an investment manager and client.Jacobi was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. | $10M / Series A / Sep 20, 2022 | |
TAZI
|
TAZI's cloud-based platform predicts customer demand, retention, and fraud detection from structured and unstructured data using AI and Generative AI. It helps customer-facing teams like outreach, sales, and marketing predict behavior to drive revenue. TAZI’s patented technology has been recognized in 31 Gartner reports as an Adaptive andResponsible AI, a Gartner Cool Vendor, and in a Magic Quadrant report. Banks, wealth management companies, and insurance companies use TAZI to create millions of dollars in value. | $4.6M / Seed / Aug 18, 2022 | |
|
TAZI
|
TAZI's cloud-based platform predicts customer demand, retention, and fraud detection from structured and unstructured data using AI and Generative AI. It helps customer-facing teams like outreach, sales, and marketing predict behavior to drive revenue. TAZI’s patented technology has been recognized in 31 Gartner reports as an Adaptive andResponsible AI, a Gartner Cool Vendor, and in a Magic Quadrant report. Banks, wealth management companies, and insurance companies use TAZI to create millions of dollars in value. | $4.6M / Seed / Aug 18, 2022 | |
mpathic.ai
|
mpathic is keeping humans safe in the AI era through automated tools and expert datasets that are rooted in psychology and powered by clinicians. | $4M / Seed / Jun 21, 2022 | |
Arkestro
|
Bid Ops is the only predictive procurement software built to keep your team continuously exceeding targets. Using Bid Ops, you can orchestrate your activities across systems using instant forecasts and real-time collaboration. Predict and win 2-5x faster savings and never get stuck waiting for a KPI report again. Learn more athttps://www.bidops.com | $26M / Series A / Jun 14, 2022 | |
Continual
|
Continual is the easiest way to maintain predictions – from customer churn to inventory forecasts – in your data warehouse. It's built for modern data teams that want to leverage machine learning to drive revenue, streamline operations, and power innovative products and services without complex engineering. | $14.5M / Series A / Jun 08, 2022 | |
| See all 70 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Illuminate Ventures invest in?
Illuminate Ventures invests primarily in Software, Analytics and SaaS startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 70 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Illuminate Ventures's check size?
Illuminate Ventures typically joins rounds of $937k–$7M at Seed, $6.5M–$32M at Series A and $6.5M–$58M at Series B. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Illuminate Ventures participates in.
How do I contact Illuminate Ventures?
Public channels for Illuminate Ventures include LinkedIn, the website linked on this profile and Facebook. 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 Illuminate Ventures?
The team at Illuminate Ventures includes Cindy Padnos (Founder, Managing Partner), Jennifer Savage (Partner) and Rebecca Norlander (Business Advisory Council Member). 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 Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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