Latest fund size
$100M
Announced
October 17, 2026
Global HQ
United States
Members only
Check size
$1M-$5M
Members only
Stage focus
Seed, Series A, Series B
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Regions of investment
North America
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49 Palms Ventures is a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm founded in 2024 by two former Simon-Kucher & Partners senior partners. The firm invests in early-stage AI founders, pairing its investments with monetization and go-to-market advisory drawn from its co-founders' pricing consulting backgrounds.
Madhavan Ramanujam, Co-founder and General Partner
Josh Bloom, Co-founder and General Partner
Rhian Davies, Principal
Mandar Kulkarni, Principal
Members only
Names, roles, emails and LinkedIn profiles for the team, plus the fund's website.
49 Palms Ventures invests in early-stage AI founders, typically co-investing alongside established lead investors rather than leading rounds itself.
The firm's thesis centers on helping AI companies monetize and scale, including turning proof-of-concept deployments into paid contracts, negotiating enterprise deals, and designing usage-based, outcome-based, or hybrid pricing models.
Its focus spans AI infrastructure and foundation models, developer tools, and enterprise AI applications.
Members only
What the fund looks for in founders and which sectors it backs.
49 Palms Ventures announced its debut Fund I at $100 million.
They've already invested in 14 companies.
The fund's focus is on AI infrastructure, foundation models, and horizontal AI applications, investing alongside established lead investors rather than leading rounds itself.
Members only
Fund size, LPs and track record.
Leadership
49 Palms Ventures was co-founded by Madhavan Ramanujam and Josh Bloom, who serve as Co-founders and General Partners.
Ramanujam was previously Senior Partner and Managing Partner of APAC at Simon-Kucher & Partners, where he led more than 125 monetization projects, and co-authored Monetizing Innovation and Scaling Innovation.
Bloom was previously a Senior Partner at Simon-Kucher in San Francisco for over a decade. Rhian Davies and Mandar Kulkarni serve as Principals.
Investment Strategy
The firm writes checks of $1 million to $5 million, investing at seed and Series A, and has followed into later rounds for its strongest-performing portfolio companies.
It typically co-invests alongside prominent lead investors rather than leading rounds.
Notable Investments
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Leadership, investment strategy, notable investments and exits.
