Bryan Berg

Background

Bryan Berg is Co-Founder and General Partner of Standard Capital, an AI-native Series A venture capital firm ¹. He holds a B.S. in Information Technology from Rochester Institute of Technology ¹.

Berg began his career at imeem, a consumer music streaming startup, where he served as CTO alongside founder Dalton Caldwell ^{2 3}. After imeem was acquired by MySpace in 2009, Berg and Caldwell co-founded Mixed Media Labs, which built picplz, a photo-sharing application for iPhone and Android that secured funding from Andreessen Horowitz ^{3 4}. The company subsequently pivoted to App.net, a subscription-based, ad-free social networking platform and API, where Berg served as co-founder ^{1 4}. App.net shut down in March 2017 ⁴.

In 2014, Berg joined Stripe as an engineer ¹. He became one of Stripe’s earliest Head of Security hires, building critical components of Stripe’s internal security controls and tools, datacenter infrastructure, and edge infrastructure ¹. He rose to Staff Engineer and served as Tech Lead of the Traffic team, which handled the majority of ingress from Stripe’s customers to its API ⁵. At the time of his departure, he was the 10th most tenured employee at Stripe, reporting to the CTO ¹.

In 2025, Berg co-founded Standard Capital with Dalton Caldwell and Paul Buchheit ⁶. The firm closed its inaugural Fund I at $425 million in October 2025 ⁷.

Stated Thesis

Standard Capital publicly describes itself as “the AI-native Series A firm” ⁶. The firm states it targets companies that have achieved product-market fit and are raising to scale, not to search ⁶. According to the firm’s website, growth rate and market opportunity are prioritized over absolute revenue metrics ⁶.

The firm operates with what it calls a founder-first structure: no warm introductions are required to apply, founders propose their own valuation and round size, Standard Capital does not take board seats, and it covers its own legal fees ⁶. The firm publishes its standardized deal documents before founders apply ⁶.

Standard Capital invests with a minimum 10% ownership stake and up to 20% for larger rounds ⁶. The firm funds approximately five companies per quarterly cycle, four times a year ^{6 8}.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 7 verified investments from Standard Capital’s portfolio page ⁹, the following patterns emerge. Note: this sample represents Standard Capital’s entire publicly listed portfolio as of April 2026, covering the firm’s first two funding cycles.

Stage distribution: 7 of 7 investments (100%) are Series A rounds, consistent with the firm’s exclusive Series A mandate ⁹.

Sector breakdown: All 7 portfolio companies (100%) are building AI-powered products. More specifically: - Developer tools and infrastructure: 3 of 7 (43%) — Trigger.dev (AI workflow platform), Momentic (AI test automation), Sim.ai (AI agent platform) ⁹ - Data infrastructure: 1 of 7 (14%) — Artie (real-time data streaming for AI systems) ⁹ - Enterprise software / fintech: 1 of 7 (14%) — Concourse (AI agents for finance teams) ⁹ - Design tools: 1 of 7 (14%) — Magic Patterns (AI design tool) ⁹ - Healthcare: 1 of 7 (14%) — Insight Health (AI clinical agents) ⁹

Check size range: Based on announced round sizes: $6M (Magic Patterns) to $16M (Trigger.dev), with a median of $12M ^{10 11 12 13 14 15 16}.

Geographic patterns: Not enough data to determine geographic concentration from public sources.

Co-investor patterns: Y Combinator appears in at least 6 of 7 investments ^{10 11 12 13 14 16}, reflecting the founders’ deep YC ties. Other recurring co-investors include Pioneer Fund (Trigger.dev, Magic Patterns) ^{10 12} and SV Angel (Sim.ai, Concourse) ^{14 16}.

Founder profile patterns: The sample is too small for reliable generalizations, but the portfolio skews heavily toward technical founding teams building AI-native products with demonstrated traction.

Notable observations: The firm’s stated thesis matches its actual behavior closely — every investment is a Series A in an AI-focused company with demonstrated product-market fit. The firm’s YC alumni network is a significant deal flow channel.

Portfolio

This table represents 7 of 7 publicly listed portfolio companies on Standard Capital’s website as of April 2026 ⁹.

In Their Own Words

On finding underinvested systems at Stripe:

“I just found a bunch of things that it really seemed like were going to be strategic for us…and we just weren’t putting enough energy into.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

On learning with humility when joining a new organization:

“I’m going to kind of table a lot of my past experience and say, I want to learn a lot from the way these folks are doing things.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

On the Staff Engineer role:

“The role to me is really about ensuring that everyone around me is successful, to try to make sure that the work that we are doing is aligned with what the rest of the organization needs.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

On building things that endure:

“The best things that I have built have been things that have been enduring…stood the test of time, not necessarily without augmentation.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

On shipping work that initially lacks enthusiasm:

“My experience has been that it’s been sort of a counter indication of early interest…The best things I’ve built, people haven’t been excited about until they shipped.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

On imposter syndrome:

“I struggle from pretty crippling imposter syndrome…I come up with a lot of bad ideas and I’m wrong about a lot of things a lot of the time.” — Bryan Berg, StaffEng Podcast ⁵

Note: No public interviews or statements from Berg specifically about Standard Capital’s investment thesis were found. The quotes above are from his time at Stripe and reflect his engineering philosophy.

What Founders Say

Matthieu Hafemeister, CEO of portfolio company Concourse, stated that Standard Capital “understood that we’ve built something that delivers value immediately” and that the partners “recognized that most finance teams are desperate for automation that actually works” ¹⁶.

Trigger.dev’s founders described being “excited to be part of the first cycle from Standard Capital’s inaugural fund” ¹⁰.

No independently sourced founder testimonials specifically about Bryan Berg were found. The firm is less than a year old, and public founder commentary tends to reference Standard Capital or its partners collectively rather than Berg individually.

Connections

• Co-founder, Standard Capital — alongside Dalton Caldwell (Co-Founder & GP) and Paul Buchheit (Co-Founder & GP) ¹
• Co-founder, App.net / Mixed Media Labs — with Dalton Caldwell ⁴
• CTO, imeem — worked under founder Dalton Caldwell ^{2 3}
• Staff Engineer, Stripe (2014–c. 2025) — 10th most tenured employee, reported to CTO ^{1 5}

Sources