John Cowgill

Partner at Costanoa Ventures

John Cowgill

John Cowgill is a Partner at Costanoa Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco. He evaluates and leads investments in applied machine learning, marketplaces, security, and deep tech.1 2

Investment Philosophy

Cowgill believes in working closely with founders to identify creative solutions to big problems. He aims to earn the trust of every founder he works with to be their first call, especially when things get tough.1 He is most excited about vertical SaaS companies with applied data/ML components and opportunities to integrate financial services/payments at scale, particularly in real estate, logistics, heavy industry, and security/infrastructure.3

Background

Prior to joining Costanoa in 2016, Cowgill was a consultant at McKinsey, advising consumer and technology companies on strategy and operations. He also worked in business development for Techweek, a nationwide technology conference company.1 2

Cowgill holds a B.S. in Learning and Organizational Change with a concentration in Marketing and Economics from Northwestern University, graduating summa cum laude.1 2 He currently serves on the boards of several Costanoa portfolio companies.4

Experience

Partner at Costanoa Ventures (2016 - Present)

RunReveal (2023 - Present), Definite (2022 - Present), Muon Space (2021 - Present), Vividly (2021 - Present), Smile Identity (2021 - Present), Zentist (2020 - Present), Kepler Communications Inc. (2019 - Present), FOSSA (2019 - Present), Parallel Domain (2018 - Present), Leap (2018 - Present), Novel (2021 - Present), Cyberhaven (2019 - Present), AppOmni (2018 - Present), Consultant at McKinsey & Company (2013 - 2016)