Post #300

Former Founders Fund VC turns operator, raises $35M for AI sales platform Sam Blond left his VC job at Founders Fund after 18 months. Now he's back with Monaco, an AI-native sales platform that just closed $35M in funding. • $35M total ($10M seed + $25M Series A) • Led by Founders Fund, angels include Stripe's Collison brothers • AI-native CRM with human sales experts (no avatars) • Targeting seed/Series A startups • 40 employees, public beta launched this week How it happened: • Left VC role in 2025, partnered with brother as co-founder • Built team with experienced operators from Apollo, Clari • Ran private beta, secured backing from former employer Takeaway: Domain expertise often beats pure capital when building startups. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/former-founders-fund-vc-sam-blond-launches-ai-sales-startup-to-upend-salesforce/ Source: TechCrunch #startups#funding