Illuminate Ventures

United States - Oakland, California

• 15/11/2022
• Series C
• $80,000,000

Illuminate Ventures is an early stage VC investor focused exclusively on enterprise cloud and mobile computing companies. We don’t rely on “pattern recognition” or following the herd. Our sweet spot is as a lead or co-lead of a startup's first institutional round of financing. 

Our team is made up of experienced investors with prior operational success, complemented by a world class, 40+ member Business Advisory Council. We’ve been there ourselves as entrepreneurs and work closely with founders to support them in building truly great companies and teams.

Illuminate’s results speak for themselves. As an early investor in companies like Allocadia, Arkestro, BrightEdge, Contentstack, Pex and Xactly, we have helped them grow their revenue from zero to tens of millions in recurring revenue. Illuminate's prior successful exits include Xactly (IPO NYSE: XTLY, then acquired by Vista), Opsmatic (Acq by New Relic: NEWR) Vivant (acq by EVLV/ORCL), Scopus (IPO), WildPockets (acq by Autodesk: ADSK), Red Aril (Acq by Hearst Corporation), Sense Platform (acquired by Cloudera), Allocadia (acq by BrandMaker) and Coupang (IPO NYSE: CPNG).

Related People

Cindy PadnosFounder

United States - San Francisco Bay Area

Cindy Padnos is the founder of Illuminate Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital firm that invests exclusively in enterprise/B2B software companies. With three funds under management, Illuminate continues to invest in and support talented entrepreneurs that are re-inventing how work gets done. Her successful exits have included Xactly Corp (IPO then acquired by Vista Equity) and acquisitions by Autodesk, Cloudera, Coupang, Hearst Corp and New Relic.

Cindy is an innovator and an advocate for all things entrepreneurial. She has been working with enterprise technology startups for more than 25 years - as a founder/CEO of a VC-backed company, a startup operating executive, and more recently as an investor. Cindy bleeds B2B/Enterprise Tech – gaining the moniker “Queen B2B” and a place at the table with other top institutional investors in the category. She is also the author of three research-based, widely-sited white papers addressing gender diversity in the tech sector.

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindypadnos/