Customer Obsession & Agentic AI Power Ravenna’s Reinvention of Internal Ops
Release Date: 05/01/2025
The Infrastructure of Intelligence: Inside Crusoe’s Massive AI Factory in Texas
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Ben Gilbert, co-host of the Acquired podcast, sits down with Chase Lochmiller, co-founder and CEO of Crusoe-AI, the company building what it calls AI factories, including its massive campus in Abilene, Texas, which are designed to power this new era of intelligence. In this conversation, Ben and Chase explore the physical reality behind today's AI revolution. Why modern AI workloads demand entirely new infrastructure. How energy has become the primary bottleneck to scaling intelligence. What it takes to compress multi-year building timelines into...
info_outline
Can We Trust AI? The Future of Verified Reasoning in High-Stakes Systems
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow hosts a live conversation with Carina Hong, Founder & CEO of Axiom, and Byron Cook, VP & Distinguished Scientist at AWS. Carina is building foundation models trained on verified proofs instead of human-written reasoning. Byron leads AWS’s automated reasoning group, which secures massive infrastructure with mathematically proven systems. During this live IA Summit conversation, they explore what it means to build AI that actually reasons and why verified intelligence is critical for domains where being right really...
info_outline
Microsoft's Agent Factory: The Future of AI Software with EVP of Core AI Jay Parikh
Founded & Funded
In this live episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Jay Parikh, EVP of Core AI at Microsoft, to unpack the company's evolution from a software factory to an agent factory Jay leads the team responsible for Microsoft’s core AI stack, the systems that power Copilot, the tools developers rely on, like GitHub, and the infrastructure that makes large-scale AI possible. In short, his group builds the underlying tech that Microsoft and thousands of companies use to create AI-powered applications and agents. In this conversation, Soma and Jay dive...
info_outline
How — and What — to Build in the Age of OpenAI
Founded & Funded
Where is OpenAI going, and what does it mean for the broader AI and tech ecosystem? Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer at OpenAI, for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions shaping one of the most influential AI companies in the world. In this live conversation from the 2025 IA Summit, Jason shares what OpenAI will build, what it won’t, and how founders can use that as a roadmap to go big without going head-to-head. They unpack OpenAI’s ecosystem-first mindset, what “full-stack AI” really means, and how the rise of agentic AI is...
info_outline
The Analyst Mindset in Venture: Madrona Investor Rasik Parikh's story
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken sits down with Investor Rasik Parikh to unpack his journey from public markets to venture capital and what makes a founder stand out. Rasik shares how working across institutional investing, M&A, and now enterprise AI at Madrona has shaped his analytical mindset and founder-first approach. They dive into how to build information asymmetry as an early-stage investor, why storytelling matters more than metrics in early fundraising, and what Rasik looks for in founders. Founders building in security, agentic...
info_outline
Redefining Communication: Yoodli Founders on AI Roleplays, Confidence & Building in Seattle
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Patrick Ennis sits down with Varun Puri and Esha Joshi, co-founders of Yoodli, an AI-powered communications coach helping people become more confident speakers. Varun and Esha share their leap from Big Tech into startup life, eating noodles on secondhand couches while chasing a bold mission: making effective communication accessible to everyone. They dive into: The origin story behind Yoodli, (and where the name came from!) How AI roleplays bring “exposure therapy” to speaking practice. Use cases ranging from sales training...
info_outline
From Google and Amazon to NewDays: Why These Tech Vets Bet on AI for Dementia
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Babak Parviz and Daniel Kelly, co-founders of NewDays, a platform purpose-built for older Americans living with cognitive change to help them reclaim abilities, preserve independence, and keep being themselves. Babak and Daniel share how their experience at Amazon and Google led them to apply AI in the most human way: helping people with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with scalable solutions. They dive into: Why we chose to build at the intersection of AI and cognitive health How to...
info_outline
The Future of Biology Is Generative: Inside Synthesize Bio’s RNA AI Model
Founded & Funded
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Joe Horsman sits down with Jeff Leek and Rob Bradley, co-founders of Synthesize Bio, a foundation model company for biology that’s unlocking experiments researchers could never run in the lab. Jeff, chief data officer at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and Rob, the McIlwain Family endowed chair in data science, share: •Why a startup the right fit for generative genomics •How generative genomics could reshape research, drug trials, and more •Why RNA is the right starting point for a generative AI model in biology •What this...
info_outline
From $1M to $10M ARR in 6 Months: How Fyxer is Winning AI Productivity
Founded & Funded
Fyxer.ai is an AI-powered assistant that helps users reclaim hours of their day by managing their inboxes, writing replies, and taking meeting notes. But Fyxer didn’t start with AI. It started with a decade-long executive assistant agency that gave them a treasure trove of data and insight that became the foundation for integrating AI. Fyxer CEO and Co-Founder Rich Hollingsworth joins Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru on this episode of Founded & Funded to share how Fyxer went from $1M to $10M ARR in six months with just 30 employees. In this episode, Rich shares: Why great...
info_outline
Autonomous CRM: How Clarify Is Reinventing a $100B Category
Founded & Funded
Thompson and Austin Hay, co-founders of Clarify, the startup that’s pioneering the idea of autonomous CRM. Their vision? A CRM that actually does the work for sellers of driving outreach, managing pipeline, and surfacing insights without constant manual input. Patrick and Austin share: • Their journey from Iteratively, Ramp, and Amplitude to founding Clarify • Why the CRM market is ripe for disruption with AI • How Clarify’s unique pricing model flips the script (free CRM, pay only when the AI agent works for you) • The concept of autonomous GTM teams and the rise of the...
info_outlineMost startups bolt AI onto old products. @ravennahq reimagined the entire workflow.
When we first met Kevin Coleman and Taylor Halliday, it was clear they weren’t just chasing the hype cycle. They were pairing AI-native architecture with deep founder-market fit, and rebuilding how internal ops work — from first principles.
Their new company, Ravenna, is going after a $160B+ market dominated by legacy players. But instead of being intimidated by incumbents, they got focused, making some smart moves that more early-stage teams should consider:
1) Speak with 30+ customers before writing a line of code
2) Define a clear ICP and pain points
3) Build natively for Slack — where support actually happens
4) Prioritize automation, iteration, and real workflow transformation
5) Stayed radically transparent with investors and early customers
At Madrona, we love backing teams that combine ambition with discipline — and Kevin and Taylor are doing just that. In this episode of Founded & Funded, they sit down with Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and talk through their journey, what they’d do differently the second time around, and how they’re building a durable, agentic platform for internal support.
If you're a founder building in AI, SaaS, or ops — this conversation is full of lessons worth hearing.
Transcript: https://bit.ly/4ju2Cml
Chapters:
(00:00) Introduction
(00:23) Meet the Founders: Taylor Halliday and Kevin Coleman
(02:05) The Birth of Ravenna: Identifying the Problem
(03:05) The Concept of Enterprise Service Management
(04:02) The Journey from Idea to Execution
(04:31) Customer Insights and Market Fit
(06:42) Building a Next-Generation Platform
(10:43) Slack Integration and AI Automation
(14:37) Partnering with Slack: A Strategic Move
(17:13) Leveraging Slack for Knowledge Management
(20:13) Balancing Focus and Vision
(21:07) Discovering ITSM: A Hidden Market
(21:40) Expanding Beyond IT: The Universal Help Desk
(24:30) ServiceNow and the AI Revolution
(27:03) Building a Transparent and Collaborative Culture
(29:37) Recruiting Top AI Talent
(31:59) Navigating Market Realities and Customer Focus
(37:59) Advice for Aspiring Founders