Greg Sands

Background

Greg Sands is the Founder and Managing Partner of Costanoa Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California, which he launched in December 2012 with a $100 million fund ¹². He holds a B.A. in Government from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business ³.

Before founding Costanoa, Sands was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures from September 1998 through December 2011, where he focused on early-stage enterprise technology investments including Merced Systems, AllBusiness, QuinStreet, FeedBurner, and Youku ³⁴. He left Sutter Hill by negotiating a two-page agreement that allowed him to take portions of stakes in companies he had led as seed capital for Costanoa ⁵.

Earlier in his career, Sands was the first non-engineering hire at Netscape Communications in 1994, where he served as the company’s first Product Manager, wrote the initial business plan, and coined the name “Netscape” ⁴⁶. He created and led the SuiteSpot Business Unit, growing it from zero to $140 million in revenue ⁴. The company went public 14 months after his start with an $8 billion market cap ⁶. He also served as Manager of Business Development at Cisco, where he architected a global channel management plan ⁴. Before entering technology, Sands worked at Mercer Management Consulting ³.

Sands serves as Senior Advisor to the Chairman at QuinStreet and was a member of its board of directors from July 1999 through October 2020 ³.

Stated Thesis

Costanoa publicly describes its focus as backing “incredible founders building extraordinary companies that can solve big problems” at the seed and Series A stage ⁷. The firm positions itself as an “early-stage missing middle investor” between angel investors and larger lifecycle venture firms, taking concentrated 10-15%+ stakes in approximately 35 companies per fund with substantial hands-on support ⁸.

Sands has stated the firm’s current focus areas are AI-enabled SaaS, AI and data infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security, and fintech ⁷. He has described the firm’s approach as: “At Costanoa, we are not chasing momentum, but trying to create it” by identifying underserved sectors before saturation occurs ².

On his personal investment philosophy, Sands has stated: “Our job is fundamentally to find extraordinary entrepreneurs working on important problems and then make an investment and support them” ⁹. He emphasizes a product-manager-like approach, personally going on sales calls with founders to assess product-market fit ⁵¹⁰.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 27 verified investments below, the following patterns emerge. Note: this represents a fraction of Costanoa’s 218+ total investments ¹¹; the analysis reflects Greg Sands’ personal investment activity where attribution is publicly confirmed.

Sector distribution (27 verified investments): Enterprise software/SaaS dominates with 10 of 27 investments (37%), followed by cybersecurity/security at 5 of 27 (19%), fintech at 4 of 27 (15%), data/analytics at 4 of 27 (15%), AI/ML applications at 3 of 27 (11%), and defense/national security at 1 of 27 (4%). Several companies span multiple categories.

Stage distribution: Predominantly seed and Series A investments. The firm’s check size ranges from $500,000 to $5 million with a sweet spot around $3.5 million ⁸¹². Fund V ($275 million, closed September 2024) targets approximately 35 companies with 10-15%+ ownership ⁷¹⁰.

Geographic focus: Investments are concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area and broader U.S. market, with occasional international investments (Aquabyte in Norway, Tensec with offices in Mexico City and Sao Paulo).

Notable exits pattern: Multiple nine-figure exits including Intacct (acquired by Sage for ~$850 million) ⁴, Roadster (acquired by CDK Global for $360 million in 2021) ¹³, Kenna Security (acquired by Cisco in 2021) ¹⁴, and VictorOps (acquired by Splunk in 2018) ¹⁵. Datalogix was acquired by Oracle ⁴. This pattern suggests a preference for category-defining B2B companies that become acquisition targets for large platform companies.

Founder profile patterns: Sands explicitly prioritizes people above product, market, and price at the seed stage ¹⁰. He looks for drive and tenacity, intellectual curiosity, and system-building ability in founders ⁶. Multiple portfolio companies were co-founded by repeat entrepreneurs.

Co-investor patterns: Frequent co-investors include DCVC, Fika Ventures, Uncork Capital, and Khosla Ventures based on verified rounds.

Notable gap: Despite the firm’s stated emphasis on fintech and AI, the verified portfolio shows enterprise SaaS and cybersecurity as the strongest categories by exit value. The defense tech focus appears to be a newer expansion driven primarily by partner John Cowgill rather than Sands personally ⁷.

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 12% of Costanoa’s 218+ total investments ¹¹. Many early entries (2012) represent positions Sands brought from Sutter Hill Ventures when founding Costanoa ²⁵.

In Their Own Words

“At Costanoa, we are not chasing momentum, but trying to create it.” — Greg Sands, Costanoa Venture Capital launch announcement, December 2012 ²

“We aren’t Johnny Appleseed. We don’t do a ton of deals, but we try to throw in with founders as much as we can.” — Greg Sands, The Full Ratchet podcast, 2022 ¹⁰

“At the seed stage, people are the most important…there’s just so much that’s unknown.” — Greg Sands, The Full Ratchet podcast, 2022 ¹⁰

“We can solve problems that were unsolvable two years ago.” — Greg Sands, on AI capabilities, Crunchbase News interview, 2024 ²¹

“We have literally solved most of the problems that could be solved by that generation of technology.” — Greg Sands, on the evolution from traditional SaaS to AI-enabled applications, Crunchbase News interview, 2024 ²¹

“Find extraordinary people, pour time and energy and capability into them so that they have the best chance of success. Pick things that matter.” — Greg Sands, Crunchbase News interview, 2024 ²¹

“Our goal has always been to be the best possible partner to incredible founders building extraordinary companies that can solve big problems.” — Greg Sands, Costanoa Fund V announcement, September 2024 ⁷

“Fund size…just bloated in ways that, frankly, aren’t even really healthy for investment activity.” — Greg Sands on the venture industry’s fund size inflation, The Full Ratchet podcast, 2022 ¹⁰

What Founders Say

“The Costanoa team feels like an extension of our team at this point, with a very different level of engagement than we see from other investors.” — Nini Hamrick, President and Co-Founder of Vannevar Labs, Costanoa Fund V announcement, September 2024 ⁷

“Thanks for being in our foxhole building Vannevar since day one, Greg Sands. Can’t find better partners than you and the team at Costanoa Ventures.” — Nini Hamrick, President and Co-Founder of Vannevar Labs, LinkedIn post ²⁷

No additional independently sourced founder testimonials about Greg Sands specifically were found through dedicated searching beyond the Vannevar Labs quotes above. Costanoa’s website states that the firm has had repeat founders who have come back to work with them, but specific attributed quotes from other portfolio founders could not be independently verified.

Connections

• Board member, QuinStreet — served on the board from July 1999 to October 2020; currently Senior Advisor to the Chairman ³
• Board member, VictorOps — September 2013 to January 2018 (acquired by Splunk) ¹⁵
• Former Managing Director, Sutter Hill Ventures (September 1998 - December 2011) ³
• First Product Manager, Netscape Communications (1994) — worked alongside Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen during the company’s founding ⁶
• Former consultant, Mercer Management Consulting ³
• Stanford NVCA Venture Capital Symposium speaker (2020) ⁴
• Frequent podcast guest — SaaStr, The Full Ratchet, Venture Unlocked, The Daily Bolster, Masters in Business (Bloomberg) ¹⁰⁵⁶

Sources