Sarah Tavel, Benchmark’s first woman GP, transitions to venture partner

Eight years after joining Benchmark as the firm’s first woman general partner, Sarah Tavel announced on X that she is transitioning to a more limited role at the storied venture firm.

In her new position as a venture partner, Tavel will continue to make investments and serve on existing company boards, but she will have more time to explore “AI tools at the edge” and reflect on the direction of AI, she wrote.

Tavel joined Benchmark in 2017 after spending one and a half years as a partner at Greylock and three years as a product manager at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, Tavel was an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she helped source Pinterest and GitHub.

Since its founding in 1995, Benchmark has deliberately maintained a small team of six or fewer general partners. Unlike most VC firms, where senior partners typically receive a greater share of management fees and profits, Benchmark operates as an equal partnership, with all general partners dividing fees and returns equally.

During her tenure as Benchmark’s general partner, Tavel invested in the campsite marketplace Hipcamp, the cryptocurrency intelligence startup Chainalysis, and the beauty platform Supergreat, which was acquired by Whatnot in 2023. Tavel also backed the photo-sharing app Paparazzi, which shut down two years ago, and the AI sales platform 11x, about which TechCrunch wrote recently.