How to Pitch Greylock

Greylock has backed LinkedIn, Airbnb, Workday, Palo Alto Networks, Discord, Figma and Roblox. Founded in Boston in 1965, it is one of the oldest venture firms still operating at the top tier. It is small by modern standards, with 11 investing partners who each make one or two new investments a year, and it concentrates on the earliest rounds.

What Greylock Is

Greylock calls itself a founder's "first believer and long-term partner." It treats seeds as concentrated core investments, usually leads, and led or co-led almost every seed and Series A it announced from November 2025 to October 2026. Its partners make the seed investments themselves, so you work with a general partner, not an associate.

Greylock 17's stated focus was AI-first companies in cybersecurity, infrastructure, SaaS, consumer, marketplaces and commerce, and fintech and crypto. Its 2026 seeds and Series As add physical AI, energy, the physical sciences and infrastructure for coding agents.

What Greylock Looks For

1. Category-defining teams. Greylock's own wording is backing "category-defining teams" building category-leading businesses. Its record shows it: LinkedIn for professional identity, Workday for enterprise HR, Figma for design collaboration.

2. Founders before they look ready. "The majority of Greylock investments go to entrepreneurs who are creating their first enterprise," and the firm says it particularly loves meeting founders before an idea has been conceived. Domain depth helps; a long résumé is not required.

3. Network effects, for some partners. Reid Hoffman says networks and marketplaces are central to all of his investing, and LinkedIn, Discord and Roblox are network businesses. Most current partners, though, list enterprise, AI, cybersecurity or infrastructure as their focus.

4. First customers. Greylock publishes no traction bar. Partner Corinne Riley on B2B: "My favorite part of working with early-stage B2B companies is finding the first customers."

5. Bay Area and Israel. Greylock's most active geography is the San Francisco Bay Area, and it calls Israel its second most active; Partner Mor Chen covers Israeli founders.

What Greylock Needs to See

• Seed: team and market. Pre-revenue is fine: Greylock says founders often arrive without any employees, a dollar of revenue or a line of code
• Series A: no published ARR bar; Partner Saam Motamedi has argued that $1M in ARR is the wrong milestone for a Series A
• Check size: day-one checks of $2 million to $20 million in its last published range (2021)

How to Get a Greylock Meeting

Greylock is small and selective, but it publishes more ways in than most firms:

• Portfolio company founder intros — LinkedIn, Airbnb, Workday, Figma, Discord alumni
• Reid Hoffman's network — if you can get to Reid through a mutual connection, that carries significant weight
• Greymatter: Greylock's blog and podcast; partners write and speak often, so engage with their work before you reach out
• Greylock Edge or a partner's inbox: Edge takes founders from before the idea to seed on a rolling basis, and three partners publish their email addresses (nmathew@, shreya@ and mchen@greylock.com)

What Gets You Passed

• A feature, not a company: Greylock backs teams it believes can build category-leading businesses
• No answer on defensibility: be ready to explain why your position compounds
• Thin technical moat — if a well-funded competitor can replicate what you've built in 12 months, Greylock will flag it

A second track: Pitch Protocol

Warm paths into a fund like Greylock take time. Pitch Protocol is not a route into Greylock; it is a second track you can run alongside your outreach. Applying is free, your own AI agent submits one application in about ten minutes with no web form, and the funds in our network whose thesis matches reach out to you directly. Apply to the First 100 Founders Cohort →