Suggestions
Chetan Puttagunta
Professional based in San Francisco
Chetan Puttagunta is a General Partner at Benchmark, a prominent venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Here are some key details about his background and career:
Professional Experience
Chetan joined Benchmark as a General Partner in July 2018.1 Prior to Benchmark, he was a General Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) from April 2011 to July 2018.2
Investment Focus
Chetan specializes in investing in software companies, particularly at the seed and Series A stages.2 His areas of interest include:
- Enterprise software
- Cloud infrastructure
- SaaS (Software as a Service)
- Artificial intelligence
Notable Investments
Some of Chetan's notable investments and board positions include:
- Elastic (NYSE: ESTC) - Chairman and Board Member since June 20142
- MongoDB (NASDAQ: MDB) - Investor and Board Member from May 2012 to October 20172
- MuleSoft - Investor and Board Member from April 2013 until its acquisition by Salesforce for $6.5 billion in May 20182
- Airbyte, Stytch, Duffel, Levelpath, and MindsDB - Current board member2
Education
Chetan holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, which he completed between 2003 and 2007.2
Investment Philosophy
At Benchmark, Chetan continues the firm's focus on early-stage venture investing, working closely with entrepreneurs to help realize their vision.1 He is known for his analytical rigor, curiosity, and dedication to serving entrepreneurs.1
Personal
Chetan is based in San Francisco, California.2 On his Twitter profile, he describes himself as a "gulab jamun enthusiast"3, showing a touch of his personal interests alongside his professional focus.
Highlights
"Reasoning" being a new paradigm for AI model scaling seems to be particularly exciting for new startup model companies primarily because they don't need to think about massive GPU clusters to bring value to the market.
Bloomberg reporting that all three major AI labs seeing limits to scaling is fascinating. If "reasoning" is the new paradigm, there's going to be tons of opportunities to create new model startups.