Benchmark is Back!

Happy Tuesday Brex Community,

Benchmark is Back! Well, the firm never left but they have gone through a substantial amount of team changes over the past few years , which might not matter as much if it was a huge partnership but they only have 5 GPs and several of which have turned over in a short amount of time, here is quick recap of some of the team changes:

• 2018: Matt Cohler and Mitch Lasky stepped back when Benchmark raised Fund IX. Eric Vishria (who joined in 2014), Sarah Tavel (poached from Greylock in 2017), and Chetan Puttagunta (from NEA in 2018) replaced them.

• 2020: Bill Gurley announced he wouldn't invest in Fund X, ending an amazing run.

• 2020: Miles Grimshaw joined from Thrive Capital as the fifth GP.

• 2023: Victor Lazarte joined, bringing AI investment chops from his founder background at Brazilian gaming company Wildlife.

• 2024: Grimshaw left after about three years to return to Thrive.

• 2025: Sarah Tavel stepped back to a venture partner role after eight years.

• 2025: Victor Lazarte left to start his own AI-focused fund.

• October 2025: Everett Randle joined from Kleiner Perkins' growth team.

• February 2026: Jack Altman (yes, Sam's brother, founder of Lattice, runs Alt Capital) joined as a GP.

• The current active partnership is Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria, Chetan Puttagunta, Everett Randle, and Jack Altman

Their hot portfolio company, Cerebras, is going to go public this Thursday and it’s going to be massive IPO in terms of valuation, likely as high as $50B as there is a lot of interest going into it, things are fluid right now.

As mentioned earlier, Eric Vishria joined Benchmark is 2014 and he lead the first round of financing for Cerebras in 2016, a monster hit for him and the firm.

I love Cerebras, not because it is going to be massive IPO but due to it going back to the roots of what made Silicon Valley great originally: processors, silicon and chips! It is also HQ'd in Sunnyvale, which is the heart of Silicon Valley and was where many chip companies started, including AMD, which acquired SeaMicro in 2012, the company that several Cerebras founders came from before starting Cerebras in 2016. In addition, Sunnyvale borders Mountain View, where Shockley Semiconductor was founded in 1956 by the co-inventor of the transistor, the team that famously spawned Fairchild Semiconductor and eventually Intel. Cerebras IS Silicon Valley through and through, many of us are rooting for them.

Have a great week!

Shai Goldman

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Refactor Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Bay Area and just closed a $50M new fund. They specialize in "hard tech" solutions for fundamental human and planetary problems. Founded in 2016, the firm focuses on the intersection of computation and the physical sciences, backing founders who are commercializing complex R&D into scalable products.

Core Investment Thesis

Refactor operates on the belief that the most enduring companies are built by those willing to tackle traditionally regulated or technically difficult industries. Their mission is to build a "happier, healthier, and more habitable world" by "refactoring" how we live through technology.

Key Focus Areas

The firm primarily targets industries where technical execution serves as the competitive moat:

• Biology & Health: Biotech, drug discovery, IVF technology, and human longevity (specifically avoiding traditional med-tech devices or single-asset therapeutics).

• Climate & Sustainability: Energy, novel batteries, chemicals, and earth systems.

• Hard Tech & Infrastructure: Aerospace, transportation, and material science.

• Applied AI: Utilizing artificial intelligence and big data to solve physical-world problems.

Firm Details & Leadership

• Founder: Zal Bilimoria is the driving force behind the firm. A former partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bilimoria helped lead their early bio and health investments before launching Refactor.

• Check Size: They generally lead or co-lead rounds with investments ranging from $100,000 to $3 million, with a "sweet spot" typically around $1.5 million.

Notable Portfolio Companies

Refactor has backed over 120 companies, including several unicorns and category leaders:

• Solugen: Carbon-negative molecule manufacturing.

• Astranis: Micro-geostationary satellites for global internet.

• Orchid: Genetic screening for embryos.

• Parallel Bio: "Immune-system-on-a-chip" for drug discovery.

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Brex is the intelligent finance platform built for speed and control. Combining corporate cards, banking, treasury, expense management, bill pay, travel, and accounting, Brex helps companies spend smarter and move faster in 120 countries. By integrating AI across every workflow, Brex enables founders and finance teams to eliminate manual work, do more with less, and accelerate impact. More than 35,000 companies from startups to enterprises run on Brex, including Anthropic, Cursor, ServiceTitan, Robinhood, DoorDash, and Sonos