Erica Brescia
Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures
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Erica Brescia is a Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures since 2021, bringing 20 years in open-source, infrastructure, and developer tools. Former COO of GitHub; co-founded Bitnami (YC 2013, acquired by VMware), a capital-efficient app-packaging startup. Her 10 verified investments focus on DevTools, Infrastructure, AI, Security, and open-source. Board member of Linux Foundation (200+ projects). Emphasizes community-driven adoption at infrastructure layer; Redpoint checks range $1-20M.
Background
Erica Brescia is a Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures, which she joined in early 2021 12. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in open source, infrastructure, and developer tools to her investing role 1.
Before joining Redpoint, Brescia served as COO of GitHub, where she was brought in to mature and scale the company following the Microsoft acquisition 12. Prior to GitHub, she co-founded Bitnami, an app-packaging platform that went through Y Combinator’s Winter 2013 batch 34. Bitnami was notably capital-efficient, raising only $1.1 million in outside funding before being acquired by VMware in May 2019 45. She also co-founded BitRock, a software packaging company, before Bitnami 2.
Brescia serves on the board of the Linux Foundation, which shepherds over 200 core open source projects including Linux and Kubernetes 16. She holds a BS in Finance from the University of Southern California 7. She was also an Investment Partner at XFactor Ventures starting in 2017 7.
Stated Thesis
(Self-reported: These represent what Brescia says publicly about her investing approach. See Inferred Thesis for analysis of actual investment behavior.)
Brescia has stated that she focuses on “infrastructure, devops, open source and security at the seed and Series A stages” 1. She invests primarily in enterprise software with a focus on DevTools, Infrastructure, AI, Security, and open source 2.
On community as an investment lens, Brescia has noted the importance of developer engagement: she looks for companies where community adoption is central to the go-to-market strategy, particularly at the infrastructure layer 6.
Redpoint is currently investing out of its 9th Early Stage fund, a $650 million vehicle, with check sizes ranging from “low single-digit millions up to around $20M” depending on the stage, market, and capital needs 8.
Inferred Thesis
The analysis below is based on 10 verified investments attributed to Brescia at Redpoint from press coverage and the firm’s website 1291011121314.
Sector concentration (based on 10 verified investments): - Developer tools / infrastructure: 6 of 10 (60%) — Dagger, Railway, Zed, Restate, Poolside, Xata - Security: 2 of 10 (20%) — Fable Security, JetStream - Construction AI (vertical application): 1 of 10 (10%) — Trunk Tools - Other (enterprise): 1 of 10 (10%) — Vega
Stage distribution (based on 10 verified investments): - Seed: 4 of 10 (40%) — Poolside, Restate, JetStream, Vega - Series A: 6 of 10 (60%) — Dagger, Railway, Zed, Trunk Tools, Fable Security, Xata
Key patterns:
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Operator-to-investor pipeline: Brescia’s portfolio heavily reflects her operating background. Multiple investments connect directly to her GitHub/Bitnami experience — Poolside was co-founded by Jason Warner (former CTO of GitHub during Brescia’s tenure as COO) 9, and Dagger was founded by Solomon Hykes (Docker founder) 10.
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Open source and developer community focus: The majority of her investments involve open-source or developer-community-driven products (Dagger, Zed, Restate, Xata), consistent with her stated thesis.
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Primarily Series A investor: Despite Redpoint’s broad stage mandate, 6 of 10 verified investments are Series A, consistent with her own statement that “most of her investments in 2023 were Series A” 2.
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Security as a growing theme: Her two most recent verified investments (Fable Security in 2025, JetStream in 2024) are both in security, suggesting an increasing focus on this sector.
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Sample size caveat: Only 10 investments could be independently verified. Brescia likely has additional investments not publicly attributed to her individually. Percentages should be treated as directional, not definitive.
Portfolio
| Company | Stage | Year | Sector | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poolside | Seed | 2023 | AI / developer tools | Active | 9 |
| Dagger | Series A | 2022 | Developer tools / DevOps | Active | 10 |
| Zed | Series A | 2023 | Developer tools | Active | 11 |
| Railway | Series A | ~2022 | Developer tools / infrastructure | Active | 2 |
| Trunk Tools | Series A | 2024 | Construction AI | Active | 12 |
| Fable Security | Series A | 2025 | Cybersecurity | Active | 13 |
| Restate | Seed | 2024 | Infrastructure | Active | 14 |
| Xata | Series A | ~2023 | Database / infrastructure | Active | 2 |
| JetStream | Seed | ~2024 | AI security / governance | Active | 1 |
| Vega | Seed | ~2023 | Enterprise | Active | 2 |
This table represents a partial view of Brescia’s portfolio. Only investments publicly attributed to her individually are included.
In Their Own Words
On the Fable Security investment, Brescia stated: “Security awareness training has become a checkbox — ineffective, outdated, and blind to how people actually behave. Fable is the first company I’ve seen that throws out the playbook of a failing category.” 13
On open source strategy, Brescia has observed that community engagement works best at the infrastructure layer: “It’s much easier to engage a community around something that developers are actually using themselves and that is happening at the infrastructure layer, whether it’s CI/CD, or whether it’s developer tools, or whether it’s databases and things like that.” 6
On venture as a path, Brescia has noted that “it really depends on what you’re building and what your goals are” and “venture is not right for everybody” 6.
On supporting founders, Brescia has said that the text and WhatsApp messages she gets from founders — “whether they’re to share wins, get feedback on new ideas, or to talk through how to navigate challenges” — give her energy and joy 2.
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Brescia’s portfolio founders have not been quoted in publicly accessible sources about their experience working with her specifically.
Sources
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Redpoint Ventures, “Erica Brescia,” accessed March 2026. https://www.redpoint.com/our-people/erica-brescia/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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VCSheet, “Erica Brescia (Redpoint) / VC Breakdown & Contact,” accessed March 2026. https://www.vcsheet.com/who/erica-brescia↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Y Combinator, “Bitnami,” accessed March 2026. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bitnami↩
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Y Combinator Blog, “Female Founder Stories: Erica Brescia, Founder of Bitnami (YC W13),” accessed March 2026. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/female-founder-stories-erica-brescia-founder-of-bitnami-yc-w13/↩↩
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Bitnami Blog, “VMware to acquire Bitnami,” May 2019, accessed March 2026. https://blog.bitnami.com/2019/05/vmware-to-acquire-bitnami.html↩
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Console DevTools Podcast, “Building Tools Devs Love with Erica Brescia,” accessed March 2026. https://console.dev/podcast/s04e02-building-tools-devs-love-erica-brescia↩↩↩↩
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Signal by NFX, “Erica Brescia Investing Profile,” accessed March 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/erica-brescia↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Redpoint raises $650M 3 years after its last big early-stage fund,” May 2025, accessed March 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/15/redpoint-raises-650m-3-years-after-its-last-big-early-stage-fund/↩
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Redpoint Ventures / Medium, “Fresh Ink: Hello, Poolside!” May 2023, accessed March 2026. https://medium.com/redpoint-ventures/fresh-ink-hello-poolside-384923ff3ad4↩↩↩
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Dagger Blog, “Announcing our $20M Series A from Redpoint Ventures,” March 2022, accessed March 2026. https://dagger.io/blog/series-a↩↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Zed raises $10M for a code editor built for collaboration,” March 2023, accessed March 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/zed-code-editor-raises-10m/↩↩
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PR Newswire, “Trunk Tools Raises $20M Series A Led By Redpoint Ventures,” 2024, accessed March 2026. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trunk-tools-raises-20m-series-a-led-by-redpoint-ventures-to-expand-suite-of-ai-agents-for-construction-302224698.html↩↩
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BusinessWire, “Fable Security Launches With $31M to Stop Risky Human Behavior,” July 2025, accessed March 2026. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250728415715/en/Fable-Security-Launches-With-$31M-to-Stop-Risky-Human-Behavior↩↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Restate raises $7M for its lightweight workflows-as-code platform,” June 2024, accessed March 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/12/restate-raises-7m-for-its-lightweight-workflows-as-code-platform/↩↩