Mala Ramakrishnan: From Builder to Backer — The Product Mind Powering a New Kind of Venture Capital
In the fast-moving world of tech, few have traversed the founder-to-VC arc with as much depth, grace, and impact as Mala Ramakrishnan.
She’s not just funding innovation — she’s lived it, coded it, scaled it, and sold it. And today, she’s using that hard-earned wisdom to back the next wave of AI-first startups through Progressive Ventures, the seed-stage firm she founded with a simple thesis: “Back builders. Believe early.”
“I’ve sat on every side of the table — founder, operator, investor. I know what it’s like to pitch with hope and lead with grit,” Mala shares. “That perspective keeps me grounded in what really matters — clarity of vision, obsession with the problem, and founders who are all-in.”
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Before stepping into the world of venture capital, Mala was a three-time founder with successful exits — proof that she doesn’t just analyze product-market fit from a distance; she’s fought for it in the trenches. Her resume includes leadership roles at WhatsApp (Meta), Cloudera, and Automation Anywhere, where she built and scaled enterprise platforms in machine learning and privacy.
At WhatsApp, she led Consumer Privacy. At Cloudera, she launched AI and ML platforms. At every stop, she paired technical depth with product instinct — and the rare ability to translate between engineers and execs.
“The hardest problems in tech aren’t technical — they’re human,” she says. “Alignment, storytelling, trust — those are the real levers.”
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Through Founders Creative, the nonprofit she co-founded and now presides over, Mala supports over 10,000 underrepresented technologists — a testament to her belief that innovation must reflect the diversity of the world it hopes to serve.
“The talent is there. The ideas are strong. What’s often missing is access,” she says. “We’re changing that — by building community, not just capital.”
Her work sits at the intersection of deep tech, inclusive access, and raw conviction. It’s no surprise that founders describe her as “the VC who gets it.”
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“She’s the kind of VC who doesn’t just ask the hard questions — she helps you answer them,” says one founder she backed pre-seed.
Another simply calls her, “the rare investor who’s walked the walk.”
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In a startup world often filled with polished decks and performative pitches, Mala stands out as someone who cuts through the noise. She doesn’t buy into hype. She listens for substance. And she shows up with the kind of clarity that only comes from having been in the arena herself.
“You can’t fake founder energy. I back people who can’t not build.”
Whether she’s writing the first check or mentoring a founder on the brink of burnout, Mala brings the same principles to the table: honesty, empathy, and an unapologetic bias toward execution.
And for those lucky enough to share a room with her, one thing is certain — you’ll leave with more than advice. You’ll leave with perspective.
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If you want to go deeper into Mala’s journey — from Stanford to scaling deep tech, from building enterprise products to backing the next wave of B2B AI startups — her recent conversation on the Verso Talk with Aytakin podcast is a must-watch. It’s a candid, thoughtful look at how she blends technical depth with founder empathy, and what drives her to back bold ideas early.
https://youtu.be/i1lD1qZVZbo?si=cTjnYkXhUmmJmkUc
On May 28th, I’ll be hosting Mala in San Jose at an eChai gathering we’re calling The AI Gold Rush: Behind The Bets. She’ll be joining us for a candid fireside chat, sharing what she’s seeing in early-stage B2B AI — the patterns, the GTM shifts, the blind spots most founders miss, and what real traction looks like in 2025. If you're building in AI, product, or anything that requires belief before proof, this is the kind of room where clarity lands and conversations linger.
She’s not just funding innovation — she’s lived it, coded it, scaled it, and sold it. And today, she’s using that hard-earned wisdom to back the next wave of AI-first startups through Progressive Ventures, the seed-stage firm she founded with a simple thesis: “Back builders. Believe early.”
“I’ve sat on every side of the table — founder, operator, investor. I know what it’s like to pitch with hope and lead with grit,” Mala shares. “That perspective keeps me grounded in what really matters — clarity of vision, obsession with the problem, and founders who are all-in.”
..
Before stepping into the world of venture capital, Mala was a three-time founder with successful exits — proof that she doesn’t just analyze product-market fit from a distance; she’s fought for it in the trenches. Her resume includes leadership roles at WhatsApp (Meta), Cloudera, and Automation Anywhere, where she built and scaled enterprise platforms in machine learning and privacy.
At WhatsApp, she led Consumer Privacy. At Cloudera, she launched AI and ML platforms. At every stop, she paired technical depth with product instinct — and the rare ability to translate between engineers and execs.
“The hardest problems in tech aren’t technical — they’re human,” she says. “Alignment, storytelling, trust — those are the real levers.”
..
Through Founders Creative, the nonprofit she co-founded and now presides over, Mala supports over 10,000 underrepresented technologists — a testament to her belief that innovation must reflect the diversity of the world it hopes to serve.
“The talent is there. The ideas are strong. What’s often missing is access,” she says. “We’re changing that — by building community, not just capital.”
Her work sits at the intersection of deep tech, inclusive access, and raw conviction. It’s no surprise that founders describe her as “the VC who gets it.”
...
“She’s the kind of VC who doesn’t just ask the hard questions — she helps you answer them,” says one founder she backed pre-seed.
Another simply calls her, “the rare investor who’s walked the walk.”
..
In a startup world often filled with polished decks and performative pitches, Mala stands out as someone who cuts through the noise. She doesn’t buy into hype. She listens for substance. And she shows up with the kind of clarity that only comes from having been in the arena herself.
“You can’t fake founder energy. I back people who can’t not build.”
Whether she’s writing the first check or mentoring a founder on the brink of burnout, Mala brings the same principles to the table: honesty, empathy, and an unapologetic bias toward execution.
And for those lucky enough to share a room with her, one thing is certain — you’ll leave with more than advice. You’ll leave with perspective.
..
If you want to go deeper into Mala’s journey — from Stanford to scaling deep tech, from building enterprise products to backing the next wave of B2B AI startups — her recent conversation on the Verso Talk with Aytakin podcast is a must-watch. It’s a candid, thoughtful look at how she blends technical depth with founder empathy, and what drives her to back bold ideas early.
https://youtu.be/i1lD1qZVZbo?si=cTjnYkXhUmmJmkUc
On May 28th, I’ll be hosting Mala in San Jose at an eChai gathering we’re calling The AI Gold Rush: Behind The Bets. She’ll be joining us for a candid fireside chat, sharing what she’s seeing in early-stage B2B AI — the patterns, the GTM shifts, the blind spots most founders miss, and what real traction looks like in 2025. If you're building in AI, product, or anything that requires belief before proof, this is the kind of room where clarity lands and conversations linger.
Because some VC conversations don’t jsut belong in boardrooms.
They belong in rooms like this — where the stories are real, the rooms are warm, and belief doesn’t need a filter.
They belong in rooms like this — where the stories are real, the rooms are warm, and belief doesn’t need a filter.