Rally Updates

Last month we celebrated Braze becoming a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: BRZE). Rally Ventures led Braze’s Series A financing in 2013, and we’ve been proud to partner with the company on its entrepreneurial journey ever since that initial investment.

I recently dug into the Backtrace story with Founders Abel Mathew and Samy Al Bahra. We covered everything from our first meeting in South Philly to Backtrace’s successful sale to Sauce Labs earlier this year. In part two of the Backtrace story, I’m taking a deep dive into four questions with Co-Founder and CEO Abel Mathew.

I first met the Backtrace co-founders at a sports bar in South Philly during the 2014 World Cup. Abel Mathew and Samy Al Bahra rented a car and drove down from New York City to meet me while I was in town for a family reunion. I doubt they had planned to pitch the company to my entire family over beers before watching the US narrowly lose to the Netherlands, but there we were.

We’re excited to announce that Jessi Howard is joining Rally Ventures as our Chief People Officer (CPO). She will lead Rally’s HR practice and operate as a fractional CPO for the Rally portfolio, providing strategic guidance and tactical support. Jessi brings 20+ years of experience in tech HR to the firm, having helped grow and shape multiple tech start-ups, including SportsEngine, RedBrick Health and Secure Computing.

We’re thrilled to welcome Jay Borenstein to the Rally Ventures team. In his role as venture partner, Jay will be responsible for driving new investments, supporting existing portfolio companies and deepening our expertise in edtech and extended reality (XR). Jay brings 25+ years of experience as a founder, operator and investor to Rally Ventures. He is a lecturer of computer science at Stanford University with a focus on virtual reality, software engineering and entrepreneurship.

A full year has passed since I graduated from Colby College and joined Rally Ventures. In that time, I’ve gone from college graduate to Rally Ventures intern to Rally Ventures associate. As I reflect on the past year and watch another graduation season wrap up, these are just a few of the lessons I’ve learned and the advice I would pass on to this year’s graduates as they make the jump into the “real world.”

We are excited to announce the close of Rally IV, a $250 million fund to invest in early-stage companies bringing innovative approaches to enterprise technology.