# Mark Leslie

> Mark Leslie is a seed investor at Exactuals backing Software and Artificial Intelligence. See 33 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Exactuals](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/exactuals)
- Location: Portola Valley, United States
- Total investments: 33
- Last investment: Mar 2026
- Lead investor: 3%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-leslie/1a/300/a31
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/mleslie45
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mleslie11

Mark Leslie is a seed investor at Exactuals in Portola Valley focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Mark is a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses in entrepreneurship and sales organization. He is also the managing director of Leslie Ventures, a private investment company, and serves on the boards of two public companies, six private companies and three nonprofit organizations.Mark was the foundingchairman and CEO of VERITAS Software. During his tenure as CEO the company went from 12 employees to 6,000 employees deployed globally, and from a revenue base of $95,000 per year to $1.5 billion per year. In 2000 Veritas was the 10th largest independent software company by revenue, third largest by market capitalization, and achieved the distinction of becoming a Fortune 1000 company.From 1980 until 1990 he served as president and CEO of two Silicon Valley high-tech start-up companies. His prior experience included roles in sales management, sales executive, systems engineering, and OS programming.Mark currently serves on the boards of Avaya Corporation (NYSE:AV) and Network Appliance (NSDAQ: NTAP) and a number of privately held high-technology corporations, including Cassatt Software, db4objects, Model N Software, Panta Systems, PostX Corporation, and Scalix Corporation, and is on the boards of nonprofit organizations Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life, Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, and Leslie Family Foundation.Mark received a bachelor of arts degree in physics and mathematics from New York University in 1966 and completed Harvard Business School's program for management development in 1980.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.5M–$12M |
| Series A | $7M–$52M |
| Series B | $8.5M–$64M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 13 | 39% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 12 | 36% |
| SaaS | 5 | 15% |
| Machine Learning | 5 | 15% |
| Information Technology | 5 | 15% |

62 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 11 | 33% |
| Series A | 11 | 33% |
| Series B | 6 | 18% |
| Series C | 2 | 6% |
| Series E | 1 | 3% |

6 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 26 | 79% |
| Israel | 2 | 6% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Great Sky | Great Sky combines photonics, superconductors, and semiconductors. to develop AI hardware. | $14M | Seed | Mar 14, 2026 |  |
| Atero | Atero provides a proprietary technology platform that improves GPU management and memory optimization for AI. | $12M | Seed | Jul 10, 2024 |  |
| Pano | Pano offers hardware and software technology solutions for fire professionals to detect threats. Pano provides tools to the government, utilities, insurers, and private landowners in order to mitigate wildfire threats and protect lives, property, and the environment. Pano is a unified enterprise solution that combines cutting-edge hardware,artificial intelligence, and software. | $20M | Series A | Sep 19, 2022 |  |
| AI21 Labs | AI21 Labs is a creator of generative artificial intelligence and massive language models, as well as tools for creating artificial intelligence systems with extraordinary understanding and generation of natural language. The company's tool captures real intelligence and rewrites writing to say exactly what is meant; it transforms the waypeople read and write, empowering them in the process; it is an artificial intelligence-based writing companion that understands context and meaning; and it helps people read more efficiently by providing summaries, allowing customers to understand, analyze, and visualize abstract knowledge structures. | $64M | Series B | Jul 12, 2022 |  |
| Helm.ai | Helm.ai develops next-generation AI software for ADAS, autonomous driving, and robotics automation. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Redwood City, CA, the company reimagines AI software development to make scalable autonomous driving a reality. Helm.ai offers full-stack real-time AI solutions, including deep neural networks for highway andurban driving, end-to-end autonomous systems, and development and validation tools powered by Deep Teaching™ and generative AI. The company collaborates with global automakers on production-bound projects. | $26M | Series B | Nov 16, 2021 |  |
| Archera | Archera is an information technology company that specializes in the fields of cloud cost optimization, reserved instances, dev ops, and finance. Its software automates purchasing, renewing and exchanging EC2 RIs and CRIs. | $7M | Series A | Sep 29, 2021 |  |
| Ahana | Ahana was founded as the first company focused on bringing PrestoDB-based ad hoc analytics offerings to market and working to foster growth and evangelize the Presto community. While Presto is in large-scale production deployment at large internet companies like Facebook, Uber, and Twitter, Ahana’s mission is to simplify ad hoc analytics fororganizations of all shapes and sizes. We are an “All Remote” company, from the start. | $20M | Series A | Aug 02, 2021 |  |
| Genesis Molecular AI | Their academia-leading research was the initial component of our expanding portfolio of AI technologies. They are combining novel deep neural networks, biophysical simulation, and massively scalable computing infrastructure to achieve industry-leading performance in a molecular generation and property prediction.The company was founded in 2019and based in South San Francisco, California. | $52M | Series A | Dec 02, 2020 |  |
| Ahana | Ahana was founded as the first company focused on bringing PrestoDB-based ad hoc analytics offerings to market and working to foster growth and evangelize the Presto community. While Presto is in large-scale production deployment at large internet companies like Facebook, Uber, and Twitter, Ahana’s mission is to simplify ad hoc analytics fororganizations of all shapes and sizes. We are an “All Remote” company, from the start. | $2.5M | Seed | Jun 02, 2020 |  |
| Vista.ai | Vista.ai is an artificial intelligence that offers clinicians to conduct MRI studies. Vista.ai was founded in 2012 and was headquartered in Palo Alto, California. | $8.7M | Series A | Apr 20, 2020 |  |

10 of 33 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Andreessen Horowitz](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andreessen-horowitz) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Google Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/google-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Kleiner Perkins](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kleiner-perkins-caufield-byers) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Lightspeed Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/lightspeed-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Cowboy Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cowboy-ventures) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [DCVC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/data-collective) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## About Exactuals

VC Fund · Los Angeles, United States

Exactuals is a SaaS-based platform that assists enterprises in paying non-employees.The platform registers its clients' data, calculates payments based on preferences, aggregates payment data, and distributes deposit payments to non-employees. It features identity vault, automated workflow, aggregated payments, real-time transparency,centralized identity management, direct deposit, and tax centers. It offers its services to firms in the music and film industries.Exactuals was launched in 2011 by Mike Hurst and is based in California.

5 contacts available at Exactuals.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Brian Noah | Principal Software Engineer - Lead | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/brian-noah |
| Brian Walley | COO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/brian-walley |
| Chris McMurtry | Head of Music Product | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/chris-mcmurtry |
| Ilie Ardelean | CEO & Co-Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ilie-ardelean |
| Mark Johnson | Investor | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/mark-a-johnson |

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## FAQ

### What does Mark Leslie invest in?

Mark Leslie invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and SaaS startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 33 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 Mark Leslie's check size?

Mark Leslie typically joins rounds of $1.5M–$12M at Seed, $7M–$52M at Series A and $8.5M–$64M 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 Mark Leslie participates in.

### When did Mark Leslie last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Mark Leslie closed in Mar 2026. Shizune tracks 33 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### 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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