Craft Ventures

Craft Ventures occupies a specific lane in venture capital that has become increasingly important as enterprise AI hype collides with operational reality. The San Francisco-based firm, founded in 2017 by David Sacks and Bill Lee, focuses heavily on B2B software, AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, developer tooling, and vertical enterprise platforms. Craft Ventures invests across seed, Series A, and growth stages, with a reputation for backing companies that solve painful operational problems instead of chasing consumer novelty cycles.

David Sacks brings the PayPal Mafia mythology with actual operating scars attached to it. Before Craft Ventures, David Sacks served as COO of PayPal and later founded Yammer, which Microsoft acquired for roughly $1.2B. Bill Lee built a reputation as an early enterprise software investor long before SaaS became a LinkedIn personality trait. Together, they built Craft Ventures around a thesis that sounds simple until you watch half the market ignore it during speculative bubbles: infrastructure matters more than attention. That thesis looks increasingly aligned with where venture capital is moving in 2026 as AI infrastructure, cloud security, developer tooling, identity management, and workflow automation shift from “interesting categories” into enterprise survival layers.

Boards stopped asking whether AI matters. Now they ask whether their existing systems break under AI pressure. Different conversation. Much sharper elbows.

About Craft Ventures

Craft Ventures describes itself as “designed by founders for founders,” which sounds like standard venture copy until you look at how the firm actually operates. The structure reflects operator bias more than financial engineering theater. Craft Ventures built platform support around recruiting, GTM execution, communications, executive networking, legal affairs, and information security because the partners understand where startup velocity usually collapses: hiring mistakes, distribution confusion, compliance blind spots, and internal operational debt accumulating quietly behind growth charts.

That operator-first mentality separates Craft Ventures from firms still behaving like macro tourists with cap tables. The venture market spent years rewarding storytelling over systems. Founders could raise $20M on a polished deck, a hoodie, and vague references to “network effects.” Then interest rates climbed, enterprise budgets tightened, and suddenly companies needed real infrastructure, predictable revenue, compliance architecture, and products customers could not casually cancel during procurement reviews. Craft Ventures looks built for that version of the market.

The firm maintains a strong focus on enterprise software, AI tooling, cloud infrastructure, security platforms, and developer ecosystems. Geography matters less than product utility. While Craft Ventures operates primarily from San Francisco and Austin, the investment strategy follows technical depth and operational leverage rather than geographic branding exercises.

Investment Philosophy

Craft Ventures invests like a firm expecting turbulence rather than applause. The broader venture ecosystem still contains pockets of speculative behavior dressed up in enterprise vocabulary. Every cycle produces firms chasing trends with the energy of tourists sprinting toward an ice cream truck. Crypto. Web3. AI wrappers. Synthetic influencers. The costume changes. The behavior stays weird.

Craft Ventures tends to concentrate around infrastructure categories where enterprise dependency deepens over time. That creates stronger retention, larger expansion revenue opportunities, and clearer long-term strategic value. The portfolio reflects this pattern repeatedly. ElevenLabs sits at the center of voice AI infrastructure as synthetic voice technology moves from novelty into production-grade deployment across media, enterprise support, and software interfaces. Supabase became one of the strongest developer infrastructure stories in modern venture capital by leaning heavily into community-led distribution and open-source momentum.

WorkOS built enterprise-ready infrastructure layers allowing SaaS companies to integrate SSO, directory sync, RBAC, and enterprise compliance capabilities without rebuilding authentication systems internally. None of these companies rely primarily on hype cycles. They solve operational friction. Enterprise buyers pay for friction removal with shocking consistency. Craft Ventures also leaned aggressively into cybersecurity and machine identity management through investments like Oasis Security, Upwind Security, and Daylight Security. That positioning feels increasingly prescient as AI agents, autonomous workflows, and non-human identities create entirely new attack surfaces inside enterprise systems.

The old security perimeter died years ago. AI just buried the body.

Market Focus and the Enterprise AI Shift

Craft Ventures represents a broader venture capital transition away from software convenience and toward software necessity. During the SaaS boom, founders could win by improving user experience around existing workflows. Better dashboards. Cleaner onboarding. Faster collaboration layers. Modern UI became a funding category by itself. Enterprise AI changes the stakes. Infrastructure determines survivability now. Companies need systems capable of supporting automation, AI copilots, synthetic workflows, identity orchestration, governance controls, and security layers operating simultaneously across distributed environments.

That shift explains why Craft Ventures continues concentrating capital into AI infrastructure, security tooling, developer ecosystems, and workflow automation platforms. The firm’s investments in companies like OpenEvidence, GreenLite, Vooma, and Cartwheel reveal another important pattern: vertical operational depth. Craft Ventures appears particularly interested in software platforms embedded deeply inside regulated or operationally complex industries where switching costs become enormous once adoption takes hold.

Healthcare workflows. Freight logistics. Government permitting. Security orchestration. Enterprise identity management. Boring industries make phenomenal venture outcomes when software finally collides with operational pain hard enough. Silicon Valley occasionally forgets this because social apps photograph better.

Leadership and Ecosystem Positioning

David Sacks remains one of the more polarizing figures in technology and venture capital, partly because he speaks with the confidence of someone who survived enough startup chaos to stop filtering every opinion through PR handlers. That operator credibility still matters to founders navigating volatile markets where institutional guidance often feels detached from actual company-building pressure.

Craft Ventures reinforces that positioning through an unusually operational platform structure. Jessica Hoffman leads the platform organization. Sarah Blanchard oversees community and executive network initiatives. Caroline Brayson focuses on communications and marketing support. Aaron Cort works across growth and GTM initiatives. Hillary Smith supports legal affairs. Cassie Chao Leemans leads talent initiatives. This matters because startup support infrastructure increasingly functions as competitive differentiation among venture firms. Capital became commoditized years ago. Execution support did not.

Why Founders Pay Attention to Craft Ventures

Founders pay attention to Craft Ventures because the firm reflects where enterprise technology markets are actually moving instead of where social media conversations pretend they are moving. AI infrastructure remains expensive to build. Cybersecurity complexity keeps increasing. Enterprise procurement remains painful. Identity management grows harder as autonomous systems proliferate. Developer tooling continues expanding because engineering velocity became existential during the AI acceleration cycle.

Craft Ventures sits directly inside those pressure points. The portfolio hiring activity reinforces that signal. Companies across the Craft Ventures ecosystem continue expanding engineering, infrastructure, security, AI research, GTM, and enterprise operations teams despite broader venture market caution. That hiring momentum suggests conviction around long-duration enterprise demand rather than short-term speculative growth narratives. Investors watch that carefully because hiring patterns often reveal market confidence before valuation headlines do.

What This Signals for Venture Capital

Craft Ventures reflects a larger shift happening across venture capital: infrastructure regained status. The market spent a decade rewarding surface-level engagement metrics and growth velocity disconnected from operational durability. AI accelerated a reversal already underway. Infrastructure, governance, security, and developer ecosystems suddenly became foundational again because enterprises realized AI amplifies operational weaknesses instead of magically removing them.

That creates stronger conditions for firms like Craft Ventures. Enterprise AI will likely produce enormous winners over the next decade, but many of those winners may look less like consumer apps and more like invisible infrastructure layers quietly powering modern enterprise systems underneath the surface. Not flashy. Extremely valuable. The venture firms positioned closest to those infrastructure transitions may ultimately shape the next cycle more than firms chasing temporary attention spikes across social feeds and conference stages.

Turns out the plumbing matters.