Menlo Ventures announced that it has raised $3 billion in new capital, marking the largest raise in the firm’s history.
The new capital will be used to back the next generation of AI companies across infrastructure, frontier models, and AI-native applications in enterprise, healthcare, and consumer markets. The announcement comes as Menlo celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Menlo was founded in 1976 by H. DuBose Montgomery, a 27-year-old electrical engineer from Bell Labs who opened the firm on Sand Hill Road at a time when venture capital was still an emerging industry. The firm said its founding belief was that the most impactful companies often begin building before the market knows how to value them.
The new capital includes two flagship funds. Menlo Ventures XVII will invest from Seed to Series A, backing companies at the earliest stages when they may still be small teams with a technical insight and early signs of product-market pull. Menlo Inflection IV will provide growth capital at Series B and beyond for companies gaining momentum and scaling toward category leadership.
Together, the funds are designed to let Menlo meet founders at different stages and continue supporting them across future rounds.
Menlo said Anthropic was a defining moment in its AI strategy. The firm made its first investment in Anthropic in 2023, when the company was pre-product and pre-revenue. At the time, ChatGPT was already widely known, and many believed the large language model market was already decided. Menlo said it saw an opportunity for another independent foundation model company led by Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei and his founding team.
Menlo later led Anthropic’s Series D, writing the largest check in the firm’s history, and has invested in every Anthropic round since. In July 2024, Menlo also launched the Menlo Anthology Fund in partnership with Anthropic to back early-stage teams building at the frontier of AI.
The Menlo Anthology Fund has now backed more than 60 companies, with two completed exits and one announced acquisition. Fintool, an AI-powered financial analysis startup, was acquired by Microsoft. Graphite, an AI-powered developer productivity platform, was acquired by Cursor. And Cisco announced plans in May 2026 to acquire Astrix Security.
Menlo has also expanded its AI portfolio across infrastructure, applications, healthcare, cybersecurity, robotics, developer tools, and consumer platforms. Its AI-related investments include Axiom, Chai Discovery, Gimlet, Goodfire, Neon, OpenRouter, Skild AI, Eve, Higgsfield, Legora, Lovable, Manifest OS, OpenEvidence, Semgrep, Suno, and Wispr Flow.
The firm said its AI investment strategy is based on backing founders early, building a portfolio that compounds across categories, and creating a network where founders benefit from proximity to other leading AI companies.
Menlo also highlighted the technical and operating depth of its team. The firm said AI founders increasingly need partners who can understand architecture, pressure-test product decisions, recruit technical talent, open customer doors, and support companies as they move from research insight to product and market adoption.
Menlo’s investment team includes operators, product leaders, engineers, and investors with experience across AI-native software, infrastructure, cybersecurity, robotics, healthcare, bio, fintech, consumer technology, and enterprise software. The firm also supports portfolio companies through its Fuel Team, which provides help with recruiting, business development, corporate development, marketing, network development, and events.
The firm said the next era-defining companies are being built now and pointed to prior portfolio companies including Gilead, Siri, Roku, Uber, and Anthropic as examples of companies that were once unknown, underestimated, or misunderstood before becoming major category leaders.
With $3 billion in new capital, two new funds, and a team built around AI investing, Menlo said it is positioning itself to back founders from the earliest stages through scale.
