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Articles by Caitlin
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas posted thisA common mistake of first time founders is hiring by committee. I get the instinct! You want everyone on the team to really rally around the next key person you hire. But, it's a trap. You are the boss and it's so important to be opinionated when hiring and that is okay if that means disagreements on who to hire. And it's also okay if you get a hire wrong. One of the most important jobs for a CEO is being the chief evangelist for talent. The earlier you develop that muscle, test your assumptions, and then improve on it, the better. And that starts with really listening to yourself on important hires.
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisAmazing initiative from my good friends at 640 Oxford. Worth checking out!!Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared this📣 We're thrilled to officially announce the launch of Beacon Manufacturing, a new initiative from 640 Oxford -- 200K sqft. industrial campus offering founders (1) contract manufacturing services; (2) a world-class manufacturing team w/ 30+ years experience; and (3) flexible industrial space for lease. At 640 Oxford, we see the challenges companies face scaling from prototyping to mass production. Translating product designs into scalable manufacturing is unforgiving—one mistake can sink a company. Long cycle times are another barrier, driven by limited access to tribal knowledge and specialty equipment- Ex: 5-axis CNC machines, which are cost-prohibitive. Beacon compresses knowledge, supplier access, and facilities gaps into one central platform. Naturally, these resources are attracting companies- Birdstop, NOX METALS - from across the country and different sectors working side-by-side and share new technologies and best-practices. We're honored to work alongside Beacon's CEO, Eugene Long, who brings 30+ years contract manufacturing experience and business-building. He went from working on the factory floor doing foundry and Metrology work to leading major manufacturing initiatives for Chrysler. He's one of the most adept and smartest manufacturing minds we've ever met. I want to give a special shout-out to my partner, Brandon Schram, for having the foresight to go all-in on Beacon, and to Justin Kosmides, Chris Nolte, Newlab, and Michigan Central for working alongside us to bring it to life. We're just getting started. Let's connect if you're ready to build 🚀 https://lnkd.in/eCpfQv6ZReprint-CD26016_640Oxford | Crain's Detroit BusinessReprint-CD26016_640Oxford | Crain's Detroit Business
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisOne team, one early stage dream at CRV 🫡Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisThe barbell in venture capital is more lopsided than ever For the last few years we've seen firms expand to multi stage and raise megafunds in the $10s of billions What's not talked about is what happens behind the scenes when this happens: -Write larger checks into rounds -Talent migrates from smaller investments to focusing on larger investments -Deal teams expand, as more scrutiny and analysis is required to wire $100M+ -Deal processes expand, layers of investment committees form -Consensus investing creeps in I've been at a multi stage firm, and felt it first hand. It's not bad, it's just the reality. In fact, with few names breaking out to be $100B+ companies, businesses staying private longer and soon multiple $1T private companies (SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic), it actually makes sense and is clearly good business But this also makes early stage investing more differentiated than ever. Here at CRV we are one team, one stage, one geography investing out of one fund. This focus is meant to give us an advantage around speed and conviction
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisCRV Security: Request for Startups I never know if this actually works for our friends over at YC but figured we'd try. Here's what we want to fund in 2026! 1. Golden Artifacts: Think Chainguard but more broad. Artifact attestation exists for open source. Almost nothing exists for internal software — especially the vibe-coded tooling now running in production. We want the company building cryptographic proof of secure software delivered from secure artifacts: who built it, how, and whether it was reviewed. If more things are being yeeted into the world via Claude Code (myself included), this feels like an issue. 2. MCP & Agentic Security: Agents are getting real credentials and taking real actions. The security posture of most orgs around this is basically zero. That changes fast. You'd never give an employee hardcoded API keys or write access to your email without supervision/trust. Why give it to agents? 3. AI Governance: Boards are asking CISOs to account for AI risk. CISOs have no good answer other than "Palo has a module" 4. Next-Gen Endpoint: CrowdStrike was built for a world of static binaries and human operators. AI workloads, cloud-native infra, and AI-assisted attackers need a new architecture. The category is ready to be reinvented. 5. Networking in the AI Era: Zero trust was designed for humans. What does network security look like when the entity requesting access is an agent? Nobody's really solved this. 6. Email Security + Next-Gen Phishing: LLMs have made spear phishing infinitely scalable. I've never truly understood why Abnormal and KnowBe4 aren't one company. Maybe this time it's different. 7. Frontier Security Lab: We'd back a credible, well-staffed lab focused entirely on red-teaming models and setting the evidentiary standard the industry needs as LLM built apps become the norm. 8. Dependency Security: That Actually Remediates Malicious and vulnerable dependencies are a top attack vector. The tooling is mostly noise — scanners that don't close the loop. The winner here ships fixes, not just alerts. 9. Critical Infrastructure Cyber: Data centers, satellites, power grids, undersea cables. The physical backbone of the internet is increasingly exposed and wildly under-defended. We have data centers in space, for God's sake. Surely we need better cyber for critical infrastructure? 10. PAM for the Modern Era Legacy: PAM was built for static roles, human users, on-prem directories. Cyberark was founded in 1999.....Agents, ephemeral workloads, and cloud-native infra have broken all of those assumptions. Is anyone rebuilding this from scratch? If you're building in any of these areas — or something we haven't thought of — reach out. james@crv.com
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisOh hey!! It’s me, finally building my first business with Hilary Coles After two kids, a fast-paced career, and just… life, I started noticing how everything is optimized to death. Healthier. Faster. Perfect. Somewhere in all of that, we lost the joy. For me, it really clicked after I developed diabetes while pregnant with my son Griffin. Sugar stopped being fun, it became math. Tradeoffs. Spirals. Crashes. I learned things like a medium vanilla latte has more sugar than… two donuts (boo). Shouldn’t there be a way to enjoy something sweet without the crash, the tradeoffs, or the overthinking? That’s why we built POCA. We think of it as the New Sugar – zero-calories, a good source of fiber and none of the crash-out. Just pocket-sized magic. It’s small. But it’s a reminder that you’re allowed to choose yourself. Even in tiny ways. Because, there’s a lot happening in the world right now and the most human thing you can do is take a real moment for yourself. That’s what POCA is for. 🩷 Grab yours at pickpoca.com and learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gzP3yC-Y #POCA #CPG #Startup
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisVertical AI feels like a horserace 🏇 but after stepping back and thinking about the current state of market, I think what's equally unique is you have three different models competing at once. I think about it through this lens: 1️⃣ AI-enabled SaaS: the familiar path Take a proven vertical category and supercharge it with AI. Clear ROI, legible GTM, easy for VCs to understand. But real questions around differentiation and long term moats. 2️⃣ AI Roll-Ups: PE gets a facelift Acquire businesses, deploy AI to improve unit economics, and own the data + operations. Powerful if executed well, but operationally and financially complex. Big open questions around end state valuation. 3️⃣ AI-native industry disruptors: Become the thing Don’t sell software. Don’t buy incumbents. Build a fundamentally new version of the industry from scratch. Highest upside, but probably the highest casualty rate. You have to choose the model where the physics match the market. Each model has different capital needs, metrics, risk profiles, and founder skill requirements. I did a deep dive on each model 🤿 : ▪️where each model wins (and fails) ▪️how data dynamics actually differ across them ▪️why valuation expectations may diverge more than people expect ▪️and where I think the biggest outcomes will come from... As always, if you are building, investing, or just trying to make sense of vertical AI landscape, I always love to jam. Full post here: https://lnkd.in/g9a_9rtj2.13.26: Three dominant models of today’s vertical AI horserace2.13.26: Three dominant models of today’s vertical AI horserace
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisSo thrilled to call Veronica my partner!!! 🔥Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisToday I’m grateful to share that I’ve been promoted to General Partner at CRV. Thank you to CRV for the mentorship and trust over the years. I’m so lucky to be at a firm that truly operates as a team; we challenge each other directly, commit fully, and show up for our founders as one. In a business that can reward individual wins, building together is what makes this place special. It’s shaped how I work and who I want to be. Thank you to the founders who’ve trusted me early and let me be part of your journey. It’s a privilege to work alongside you. Excited for what's ahead! (An incomplete photo of a very complete team - Reid Murat Saar Caitlin Brittany James Mia Nadine Fattah Anja Zehfuss)
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas reposted thisI'm hiring a Chief of Staff at Flipturn! This would be a great fit for a high-agency individual interested in tackling a wide range of work spanning finance, business development, internal operations, partnerships, international expansion, new markets, and more. Come work directly with me on exciting projects in the EV charging & energy space :) Read more here: https://lnkd.in/erN7P8fG
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisCome join us and build cool AI stuff!! 👩💻 Perks: you get to hang out with one of the best (and most fun!) teams in venture amongst many others...Caitlin Bolnick Rellas shared thisWe at CRV are excited to be hiring our first ever AI Engineering Lead! We're looking for an early-mid career builder who wants to explore how to apply all of the exciting developments in AI to venture capital. We're a super tight knit team, in office five days a week in San Francisco, and would love to find someone as collaborative, hard-working, and AI-obsessed as we are! If this sounds like you (or someone you know)... More details: https://lnkd.in/gtm9S-tY Application: https://lnkd.in/gzsXFm9D
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas liked this“More code, more problems.” Anthropic’s recent data leak made Molly Welch, Partner at Radical Ventures, reflect on rising security risks in the AI ecosystem. "There are a number of critical dependencies, a number of vulnerabilities that more agentic systems introduce."
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisAbsolutely pumped to announce our $45M Series B raise here at Sona 🚀 led by N47 with participation from Gradient, Northzone, Felicis, Antler, Speedinvest, BAG Ventures, and Repeat Ventures Revolutionizing frontline workforce management -- AI-native, modern, and intelligent. Helping our customers put the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Excited to scale out our US expansion: - first US customers signed and live ✅ - NYC office established ✅ - founding sales team in place and full sprint (Ryan & Kevin) ✅ (and holy s** yall are beasts) - 🎯 Now: We're hiring (and building rapidly)! Especially for sales roles. Reach out if you're interested in joining us -or- have anyone in mind. NYC and Austin offices today Stage 1: absolute bonkers. Stage 2: here we come 🔥 couldn't have done it without you: Darian Shirazi, Steffen Wulff Petersen, Oli Johnson, Ben Dixon, Kyle Duffy, Katy Engle, Paul Watson, Russ Kenyon, Niki Pezeshki, Aydin Senkut, Jeppe Zink, Martell Hardenberg, Katie Barber, Nathan Key, Ben Lee, Chris Sundgren, Zac Da Rocha, Anne Crawford, Wen-Wen Lam, Bonita Stewart, Emerson Kirk, Clayton Petty, Ryan Sears, Kevin McIver, India Kelly, Simon Hutt and so so many more! Axios coverage: https://lnkd.in/gvBKJsXtCaitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisSuper excited to announce Sona's $45M Series B investment led by Matthew Cowan and Fred Ellis from N47 in San Francisco with participation from existing investors Northzone, Felicis, Gradient, Antler and new investors Italian Founders Fund and Repeat Ventures. Thanks to Jeppe Zink Darian Shirazi Aydin Senkut Martell Hardenberg Lorenzo Franzi Dan Jones Markus Lang 🚀 At Sona we're building the AI leader for the frontline economy - the single platform to manage data, apps and agents - to intelligently handle the complexities of hourly workforces at scale. A huge thank you to our customers across the UK and the US — the forward-thinking operators who back better ways of working. A massive shout out to our elite team 🔥 We're here because of you - and we're looking for more AI-obsessed talent to join our offices across London, New York, Austin and Lisbon. We have no 9-5 jobs, but if you're looking to be all-in at the intersection of AI and the real world - then get in touch. Thanks Chris Metinko for covering our story at Axios 🙌 (link in comments)
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisExcited to share our thesis on the massive AI opportunity in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) space. Notably disrupting the sleepy monopoly that is Revit (owned by Autodesk) and it's surrounding workflows. Kudos to my co-authors Joe Schmidt IV, Zabie Elmgren and Caroline Goggins for putting these ideas to print. https://lnkd.in/exsbw2TFEvery Building You've Ever Been In Was Designed By Software Built in 1997 | Andreessen HorowitzEvery Building You've Ever Been In Was Designed By Software Built in 1997 | Andreessen Horowitz
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Caitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisCaitlin Bolnick Rellas liked thisSolo founding is the harder path, until it isn't. Zero to one without a co-founder is brutal. Hiring your first employees, closing your first round, iterating with customers, simply "setting sh*t up" takes raw hours and effort. No one to help carry the weight. Some of the most decisive, fastest-scaling companies I've worked with have one person at the helm: Guillermo Rauch @ Vercel Tammy Sun @ Carrot Andrew Morris @ GreyNoise Intelligence Paul Klein IV @ Browserbase Once they found product-market fit, the solo structure can become an advantage. No competing priorities. No mixed signals to the team. One vision, one decision-maker, one throat to choke. Don't get me wrong, the data shows co-founding is the statistically better path, but I do think there are advantages so solo founding.
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