Founders hunting for Cervin Ventures funding are knocking on a Palo Alto enterprise specialist's door. Cervin Ventures partners with product visionaries in enterprise, funding disciplined entrepreneurs who are disrupting the enterprise application, infrastructure and tools spaces. The firm closed a $162 million fund in September 2023, taking total AUM to $335 million (an earlier $56 million fund closed in 2017).
Thesis and focus: how to get funding from Cervin Ventures
The thesis is product-led enterprise disruption at the earliest stages: pre-seed, seed and Series A. Sectors include enterprise software, data infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, DevOps, cloud, networking and industry solutions. The firm has backed more than 50 companies, with more than a dozen successful exits including Punchh, Replay, EdCast and Tynker.
Cheque size
Cervin typically invests $1M–$2M in early-stage startups (TechCrunch, 2018) — a crisp, verifiable range that makes it easy for founders to self-qualify.
Notable portfolio
Verified portfolio companies include LaunchDarkly, Paystand, SnapLogic, Celona, Wevo, Catch+Release, AiFi, ArmorCode, Anvilogic, Bolster, Conveyor, Folloze and Zight.
Partners
The firm was co-founded by Preetish Nijhawan (General Partner) and Neeraj Gupta (Partner; focus on industry solutions and data infrastructure), with Shirish Sathaye joining as Partner in October 2018 from Matrix Partners, Khosla Ventures and Formation 8 — his investments included Aruba Networks and Nutanix. In 2023 the firm added a portfolio-services team for post-investment business development, research, GTM and marketing support.
How to apply for funding
No pitch or contact route is published on the firm's site (its contact page returns a 404), so founders reach Cervin Ventures through warm introductions — ideally via a portfolio founder or a co-investor in the enterprise ecosystem. Lead with product depth and founder discipline, the two traits the firm's thesis names explicitly.
The September 2023 $162 million raise was positioned as a step up in ambition: alongside the capital, Cervin introduced a dedicated portfolio-services team — led by veteran Scott Brown — covering business development, research, go-to-market and marketing for portfolio companies. For enterprise founders, that means the firm's help extends beyond the cheque into the unglamorous work of enterprise selling, which is often where early-stage B2B startups stall.
Why it matters for founders
Cervin is a high-signal target for enterprise founders at pre-seed to Series A: the $1M–$2M cheque range is public, the partners are operators, and the portfolio-services team means real post-investment help. No portal exists, so invest the effort in a warm intro through the enterprise founder network.