# Ramu Arunachalam

> Ramu Arunachalam is a General Partner at A.Capital Ventures, the San Francisco-based VC firm known for a founder-friendly approach and a portfolio spanning Notion, Anthropic, Databricks, Coinbase, and Replit. An engineer turned product manager turned investor, Ramu brings a rare depth of technical credibility to the table - he helped build VMware's first virtual switch, shaped a16z's Cloud and Big Data thesis during his time as Partner there, and now leads A.Capital's $180M Fund V with a focus on AI and crypto-native companies.

- **Role:** General Partner at A.Capital Ventures
- **Organizations:** A.Capital Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, VMware, Aster Data Systems, Nutanix, JPMorgan, Inktomi
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering (University Honors), Carnegie Mellon University, MS in Computer Science, University of Maryland, MBA (Analytical Finance, Managerial Economics, Decision Sciences, Financial Accounting), Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
- **Known for:** General Partner at A.Capital Ventures, which raised a $180M Fund V focused on AI, Early investor in Databricks (now valued at over $60B), Illumio, Pindrop Security, Platfora (sold to Workday), and Actifio, As Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, worked on over a dozen enterprise software investments and helped shape the firm's Cloud infrastructure and Big Data thesis

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Engineer at Inktomi, one of the early internet infrastructure pioneers
- **Early career** — Engineer at VMware; part of the team that developed the industry's first virtual switch for ESX server
- **2007-2009** — Investment Banking at JPMorgan, Technology, Media & Telecom group
- **~2009** — Earned MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
- **Post-MBA** — Product Management at Nutanix, the enterprise cloud computing company
- **Pre-a16z** — Led new product initiatives in Big Data at Aster Data (later acquired by Teradata)
- **2010-2014** — Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), focused on enterprise software; backed Databricks, Platfora, Illumio, Pindrop Security, Actifio, and others; helped shape a16z's Cloud and Big Data investment thesis
- **2014-present** — General Partner at A.Capital Ventures, co-investing with Ronny Conway in early-stage AI, crypto, and enterprise companies

## Achievements

- General Partner at A.Capital Ventures, which raised a $180M Fund V focused on AI
- Early investor in Databricks (now valued at over $60B), Illumio, Pindrop Security, Platfora (sold to Workday), and Actifio
- As Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, worked on over a dozen enterprise software investments and helped shape the firm's Cloud infrastructure and Big Data thesis
- Part of the engineering team at VMware that built the industry's first virtual switch for the ESX server product line
- A.Capital portfolio includes Notion, OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, Replit, Coinbase, Uniswap, Reddit, and Airbnb
- Navigated the rare arc from hands-on engineer to product leader to investment partner - with operating credibility in every role

## Latest updates

- **2025-11** — A.Capital Ventures closed Fund V at $180M, with an AI-focused investment mandate. LPs include Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Missouri Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol Employees Retirement System, and Ford Family Foundation.
- **2021-07** — A.Capital led/participated in Unit21's $34M Series B round, continuing its enterprise software thread.
- **2021-10** — Participated in Unit21's $13M Series A round in October 2020, doubling down on fraud operations infrastructure.

## Links

- Website: https://acapital.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ramuarunachalam

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ramu-arunachalam
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-17