Sandhya Venkatachalam, a former Khosla Ventures partner who was an early investor in chipmaker Groq, has launched her own firm, Axiom Partners, to make what she describes as nonconformist bets on AI startups in their infancy.
Loading audio narration…
“Contrarian and wrong is relatively useless,” she said. “Contrarian and right, that’s the goal.”
At a moment when venture capital is pulling back and emerging managers are struggling to raise money, Venkatachalam is leaning into risk with her debut $52 million fund.
She argues that too many large firms are chasing “fully priced” AI infrastructure and crowded application startups, leaving little room for truly category-defining companies. With checks ranging from $100,000 to $2.5 million, Axiom plans to invest at the earliest stages, backing founders with visions of how AI will reshape industries, even when the consensus says otherwise.
“I am really interested in investing in founders that have a different view of what tomorrow looks like and are using AI to build the next generation of category-defining companies,” she said
Venkatachalam also sees froth in some AI applications companies.
“There will be some big companies that emerge,” she said of AI tools in HR, cybersecurity, and sales. “But transformational companies rarely emerge from existing categories. We want to find the new category.”
“To do this, you need to go really early, you need to have high conviction and bet on founders when they’re just starting,” she said.
A tough time to strike out on your own
It is a brutal time to strike out alone in venture capital. Institutional investors are trimming allocations, emerging managers are struggling to close funds, and solo GPs are under more scrutiny than they have been in years. Venkatachalam is also a rare woman of color in an industry dominated by white men.
“My timing was impeccable,” she joked. “I just jumped in and learned the hard way.”
Despite the obstacles, Venkatachalam says she slightly exceeded her fundraising target, raising $52 million from limited partners, including several large multi-stage venture firms and multi-billion-dollar family offices.
Some were drawn by access to deal flow, while others sought insight into how AI would reshape the businesses where they had made their fortunes.
“These folks are Guinea pigs for this technology,” she said. “They can help us diligence that, but also be potential customers.”
Adapting the Khosla playbook
A major influence on Venkatachalam’s approach is Vinod Khosla, the billionaire founder of Khosla Ventures, who wrote one of the earliest checks into OpenAI.
People like Vinod have the broadest view of what makes a great founder,” she said. More than pattern matching on resumes or pedigree, he looked for underlying qualities and long-term vision.
He also embraced non-consensus investing. When Khosla Ventures invested in OpenAI in 2019, she says it was still seen as “a nonprofit science project,” and the decision was not unanimous even within the firm.
The culture encouraged conviction. If an investor could defend the thesis rigorously, they were empowered to move forward.
“I don’t look for consensus,” Venkatachalam said. “If you really can back up your argument and you have conviction,” she explained, that is what matters.
Venkatachalam has brought on two other partners, including Evan Morikawa, OpenAI’s former head of applied engineering, and Kipp Bodnar, chief marketing officer at HubSpot. Serial founder Paolo Perazzo is serving as the firm’s “head of AI.”
“We have this amazing team of operating partners who know far more about AI than I do,” she said. “That’s the whole point.”
But as a solo GP, Venkatachalam retains ultimate decision-making authority.
“I can move in a very agile fashion, which I think is one of our greatest competitive advantages because lots of things are moving really fast in venture right now,” she said.
