Costanoa

SUMMARY: In 2008, this business owner’s company was in danger, but by planning and making hard decisions, they came back stronger than ever.

I’ve asked this question of countless founders and can count on one hand the number of times I got a crisp answer.

In the earliest stages of startup life, every founder’s central task is to find the right product market fit.

A startup isn’t a public company and a startup board shouldn’t be like a public company’s board,

Costanoa Ventures is a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage companies.

On March 29, 2018, the company welcomed Casey Aylward as its newest associate.

Costanoa approaches its eighth birthday.

Costanoa welcomed David as its newest General Partner.

Costanoa Ventures welcomes cybersecurity leader Joe Sullivan as Venture Partner. Former CSO at Meta, Uber, and Cloudflare brings deep security expertise.

Mark Selcow joined Costanoa as a Venture Partner.

Bold Ideas, Enduring Companies

Costanoa Ventures is a Seed and Series A venture firm founded in 2012, backing applied AI, cybersecurity, fintech, and national security companies with ~$2.8B AUM.

Costanoa Ventures is a Seed and Series A venture firm founded in 2012, backing applied AI, cybersecurity, fintech, and national security companies with ~$2.8B AUM.

VC Sheet is where founders go first to be *strategic* about their upcoming raise, and to identify which investors are proven to be helpful and recommended by other founders.

StackHawk launches Wingman, a tool that detects and fixes application security vulnerabilities inside AI coding workflows, including Claude Code, Cursor and GitHub Copilot. When a coding agent marks a feature complete, Wingman runs and probes the application, sends findings to the original agent for patches, and rescans before a pull request opens. StackHawk says Wingman has fixed more than 7,000 vulnerabilities for early-access customers, with 98% of repairs holding; subscriptions cost $10 per user each month.

Sep 2026 · SiliconAngleNews article

Sheryl Sandberg leads a $10 million investment in Self Inspection, a San Diego startup that uses smartphone photos and AI to assess vehicle damage. The company says it has completed more than 1 million inspections for rental fleets, finance companies, auctions, and marketplaces, and that Stellantis’ financial services arm uses its platform. Self Inspection plans to use the funding to build products, reach more enterprise customers, and expand to Europe.

Jul 2026 · TechCrunchNews article