By: Nate Bek
For Vivek Ladsariya, building companies is a lot like cooking.
“You eat what you make, so don't make bullshit,” he says, a mantra that has guided his career as a founder-turned-investor.
Vivek is now Managing Director at Pioneer Square Labs and GP at PSL Ventures. In the role, he helps invest out of its $100 million fund focused on Pacific Northwest tech startups. He also works with PSL’s startup studio to create new companies. Vivek covers AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure, industrial tech, and devops.
“Don't get too caught up in trying to bullshit your way around building a company,” he tells Ascend. Instead, founders should solve real problems, he says.
Before joining PSL, Vivek was a GP at San Francisco–based SineWave Ventures. Throughout his career, Vivek has invested in companies like Databricks and MindMeld (acq. Cisco). He also founded and exited his own companies: GameGarage and Moyyer Secondary Markets. Vivek was featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 section in 2018.
Founded in 2015, PSL has raised $180 million to date for its venture fund, and about $50 million to support its startup studio that has spun out more than 35 companies including Boundless, Recurrent, SingleFile, and others.
Ascend invested alongside PSL on a number of deals, including Yesler, Meetingflow, Overland AI, Recurrent, and Iteratively.
Vivek grew up in India and did undergraduate studies at the University of Mumbai. He earned an MBA from Yale. In his off hours, he enjoys cooking with friends and being outdoors.
Vivek was kind enough to sit down with Ascend for our VC profile series, where we showcase early-stage investors from across the US. We talked in more depth about his VC passion, PSL’s unique value add for founders, and why cooking relates to investing. Read to the end for carve-outs.
*We've edited this conversation for brevity. Enjoy! — Nate 👾
Nate: Thanks for chatting with us, Vivek. What made you decide to be a professional investor? And what led to this moment?
Vivek: There was certainly no active decision to become an investor — it was something that happened by fluke. I was an entrepreneur. I'd started companies in my life before. And that's all I knew how to do and what to do. I found myself after an exit without my next company lined up, and was exploring what to do, started to make a couple of angel investments and fell into the investing world. As a result, I soon enough started to love it. Because it was a really neat way to stay engaged in the early stage ecosystem, thrive on some of that early stage startup energy, while still being able to see a breadth and range of companies. And that, to me, was very exciting.
What’s getting you the most excited these days, whether that’s AI infrastructure or specific verticals?
Horizontally, I've always focused on enterprise infrastructure. I started my career in big data, learning how to derive actionable insights from large amounts of data. This led me to invest in data analytics, data management, and data infrastructure. With every new computing shift, the types of infrastructure needed evolve. Some will be built by incumbents, but many new companies will emerge. That's where I focus a lot of my time.
Vertically, I'm excited about industries that haven't been very software-driven. I've spent time in agriculture and manufacturing, exploring opportunities there. These industries may not be large markets, but they offer great opportunities for vertical integration and driving deep value where software hasn't been prevalent. It's challenging because you need to understand the industry well to deliver precise solutions. People in agriculture, for example, buy technology for specific needs and are conscious of their spend.
As an investor, I find it exciting to learn in-depth about these industries. While most industries today are software-driven, the key question is whether they are leveraging the most modern technology and where such technology can be applied.
One of the reasons I got into journalism, and now VC, is what you mentioned on the vertical front of learning about industries that are foreign to me. I remember at GeekWire I wrote about a pasta company. And, yesterday, I went deep into proptech. There's just so many opportunities to find ways that software can help a specific industry and their pain points — it's a cool motivating factor.
It's funny, right? Back in 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote "Software is eating the world." I think it was probably true for at least 10 years before he wrote it. It's been 13 years since then, and it's still very true. I think it will be true for the next couple of decades.
Software is eating the world, and it's our job to find the little crevices that haven’t been chewed off yet. Switching gears, what's your pitch to founders? And why should they want you on their cap table?
There's obviously a lot of nuance here, depending on the space, the co-founders, the history with the founder, and so on. Sometimes you’ve known a founder for 20 years, and there isn’t much of a pitch. But when that's not the case, there is a firm pitch because you're working with PSL as a firm and me individually as a partner. There are unique advantages to both.
PSL is exciting because we are both a company builder and an investor. This dual role allows us to understand the nuances of building companies. All partners on the team are deep operators. For an entrepreneur, partnering with a firm that truly understands the daily grind of building a company is invaluable. We at PSL share our learnings regularly and routinely.
As for me, I’ve built and sold companies before, and I leverage that experience to help founders. I pride myself on being the first phone call my portfolio companies make in tough times. Startups are hard, and I want to be the person they want to call, not just feel pressured to call. I work hard to be able to solve critical problems and be a great listener, supporter, and advocate through the challenging times that are inevitable in every startup journey. This was important to me when I was building companies, and I think it's crucial for founders today. Most of the founders I work with would probably say I’m their first phone call when things get tough.
It's a good value add. On the firm side, what's interesting is that you often hear about someone who has founder-operator experience. What's unique about PSL is that you guys are not just relying on experience from 20 years ago; you're actively building companies right now. You're using the latest technology, the newest back-end tools, and exploring emerging opportunities. You are actively iterating and hacking together with the founders…
Not many founders get the luxury of meeting with investors to discuss how the investor is in real time using this particular RAG model to ingest data, or to search across enterprise data. I think that is really unique.
Why come from the Bay Area to Seattle? What drew you here? What opportunities are you seeing, and where do they lie right now?
When I first started evaluating Seattle, I saw it as a great opportunity—an underpriced one—with incredibly deep tech talent. This talent is building in spaces and infrastructure that I care about. It quickly became evident that Seattle isn't just a good opportunity; it might be the best location for certain types of technologies. While not for all startup building, for core infrastructure tech companies, Seattle is one of the best markets globally. The talent depth here is incredible, with some of the largest tech companies headquartered or having significant engineering hubs in the city. This creates a magnet for tech talent like no other place.
Despite being just an hour and a half flight away in San Francisco, I was far removed from the Seattle tech scene for years. Now, I see a real opportunity to build a bridge between San Francisco and Seattle, which can be a powerful way to innovate and create category-defining companies.
The bridge between the Bay Area and Seattle is crucial. At Ascend, we often discuss how Seattle has incredible engineering talent and birthed many of the world's biggest companies. However, it lacks growth-stage capital and some of the growth marketers, angels, or advisors found in the Bay Area. To scale a startup effectively, it's essential to build in Seattle while tapping into the capital and expertise available in hubs like San Francisco.
You nailed it. That's an important aspect—it doesn't need to be geographically isolated. The strengths of Seattle and the Bay Area can come together to form something powerful and unique. To me, that's where the real opportunity lies.
What’s the bear case?
To me, not being great at certain sectors isn't necessarily a bear case. Not every region needs to excel at everything. If we generally don't build world-class consumer companies, that's fine; they can be built elsewhere. We should focus on our strengths. The real risk is not leveraging those strengths to their maximum potential. This means not bringing the rest of the world along on our journey. If we build in isolation, we won't create large, impactful companies. Growth capital isn't abundant here; it's distributed across the country and the world. We need to engage these external resources sooner and more frequently.
Another risk is brand building. Even if we excel in non-consumer sectors, we need to solidify and promote our brand globally. The Bay Area is often too boastful, while Seattle tends to be too reserved. The sweet spot lies in building a highly credible and sincere brand while ensuring we publicize and take credit for our achievements.
What are you reading these days? What sources are filling you in on the latest RAG updates?
We invest at the earliest stages, often mere weeks from a company's formation. This requires staying up-to-date well before a company's inception, which poses unique challenges. One approach for me has been being deeply involved in the open-source community. I keep track of promising open-source projects and those gaining momentum.
Additionally, I spend time reading research papers in the fields I care about. Researchers working at the cutting edge, or as one of my friends likes to say, the "jagged edge" of technology, often develop technologies that will commercialize in a year or two.
Practically, finding and meeting entrepreneurs involves engaging with universities and key team leaders at major tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google. By being a thought partner and staying ingrained in the open-source community and research trends, I position myself as a natural choice for these leaders when they consider starting a company.
Fun question time! Spotify or Apple Music? What song is getting the most play?
I am definitely a Spotify person, mostly because that's where my family plan is. I just use whatever my wife uses. A song I'm listening to a lot these days is "Let's Be Still" by The Head and the Heart. I play it every morning on my drive. It's a centering song that helps me pause before the chaos of the day. I play it every morning, but my favorite song changes pretty often.
Favorite shoe?
I have these Fila squash shoes from 2018 that are completely in tatters and falling apart at the edges. But I wear them every morning when I work out because they feel like my Samurai shoes. Every time I step into them, I feel like I'm gearing up as a samurai. Outside of that, on an everyday basis, I just wear whatever shoes I find.
I love it. The routine is the important part… Now’s your time to shine. What’s your go-to ingredients in the kitchen and how do you make the case that cooking and investing are similar?
I love to cook, and my favorite ingredient, without contest, is garlic. I probably overuse it according to others, but I think it’s not used enough in most cooking. Garlic is a core part of my pantry at all times.
Interestingly, I see a lot of similarities between cooking and investing or company building. The quality of the ingredients is paramount. In cooking, if you start with great ingredients, you just have to avoid messing up too much to end up with a good dish. Similarly, in investing, the "ingredients" are the people. Focus on high-quality people, and you’re likely to build a successful company.
A friend of mine used to say, "You eat what you make, so don’t make bullshit." Eventually everything comes to roost. Everything gets put on a plate and you have to consume it. Don't get too caught up in trying to bullshit your way around building a company — build something real and solve a real problem. And, eventually, you’ll have something good to eat.