# Lenny Pruss

> Lenny Pruss is a General Partner at Amplify Partners, a Menlo Park-based early-stage venture firm focused on deeply technical founders building developer tools, data infrastructure, and enterprise software. A Soviet-born refugee who grew up in Silicon Valley during the 1990s tech boom, Pruss studied EECS at UC Berkeley and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he co-founded Rock Venture Partners, a student-led seed fund. Before Amplify, he backed companies like Datadog at RRE Ventures and led HashiCorp's investment at Redpoint Ventures. His portfolio now spans more than a dozen infrastructure and developer-tools bets, including Cockroach Labs, dbt, Temporal, Dagster, Sourcegraph, Chainguard, and Antithesis, reflecting a conviction that the hard problems in software correctness, data movement, and security are still largely unsolved.

- **Role:** General Partner at Amplify Partners
- **Organizations:** Amplify Partners, Temporal Technologies (board), Antithesis (board), Hightouch (board), Muraena.ai (board)
- **From:** Soviet Union (USSR)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (with Honors), University of California, Berkeley, MBA, Harvard Business School
- **Known for:** Early backer of Datadog at RRE Ventures before its IPO, Led HashiCorp's investment at Redpoint Ventures before its acquisition by IBM, Promoted to General Partner at Amplify Partners

## Career timeline

- **early career** — Investment banking analyst at Jefferies & Company
- **~2012-2015** — Senior Associate / Principal at RRE Ventures (New York); backed Datadog and WhipTail Technologies (acquired by Cisco)
- **~2013-2014** — Co-founded Rock Venture Partners, student-led seed fund at Harvard Business School
- **2015-2017** — Principal at Redpoint Ventures; led investment in HashiCorp, expanded cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity thesis
- **2015-2016** — Principal at Insight Venture Partners (enterprise software)
- **2017** — Joined Amplify Partners as Partner
- **2024-2025** — Promoted to General Partner at Amplify Partners

## Achievements

- Early backer of Datadog at RRE Ventures before its IPO
- Led HashiCorp's investment at Redpoint Ventures before its acquisition by IBM
- Promoted to General Partner at Amplify Partners
- 14+ portfolio investments in infrastructure and developer tools
- Contributed to Amplify's 170+ portfolio company milestone including 13 unicorns, 5 IPOs, and 50+ acquisitions
- Co-founded Rock Venture Partners, a student-led seed fund at Harvard Business School
- Backed Cockroach Labs, dbt, Temporal, Dagster, Sourcegraph, Chainguard, Antithesis, Hightouch

## Latest updates

- **2025-04** — Published a ~4,000 word blog post on the Amplify Partners blog reflecting on infrastructure investing themes
- **2025-02** — Antithesis, an Amplify portfolio company where Pruss sits on the board, raised $30M in funding
- **2024-2025** — Promoted from Partner to General Partner at Amplify Partners alongside Sarah Catanzaro

## Links

- Website: https://www.lennypruss.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennypruss
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/lennypruss
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lennypruss/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amplify-Partners-LLC/169636339887243

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/lenny-pruss
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-18