Pete Sonsini

Pete Sonsini is a venture capitalist, technologist, and co-founder of Laude Ventures. He partners with deeply technical founders at the earliest stages, with an investment portfolio that includes multiple pre-revenue startups that have since evolved into multi-billion dollar companies. He was previously a general partner at NEA, where he steered the firm’s software team for nearly two decades, leading early investments in Databricks, Anyscale, Instabase, Upstart, and Perplexity. He currently sits on multiple boards, including Databricks, Anyscale, and Perplexity. Prior to NEA, Pete was Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at VMware where he struck the company's initial OEM deals and grew annual sales through OEMs from $0 to $40 million in four years. Pete ran product management at Mirapoint and worked in sales and marketing at Hewlett-Packard, including Worldwide Product Manager for the mid-range server business. Pete began his career at Montgomery Securities in the Technology Corporate Finance group.Pete received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and his BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.