Venture Partner / Benchmark
Sarah Tavel is a prominent Venture Capital investor, currently serving as a Venture Partner at Benchmark, where she focuses on businesses that can "escape competition," particularly marketplaces, user networks, and vertically focused AI. Prior to Benchmark, she was a Partner at Greylock Partners and the founding Product Manager for search and discovery at Pinterest, where she was one of the first 30 employees. She is known for her expertise in network effects and consumer technology.
Partner
Board member for Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly, 11x, Agentio.
One of the last investments I led was via a cold email from a founder, so don't hesitate to reach out. I can't guarantee a response, but promise I will read it. I am sarah at benchmark dot com.
General Partner
While at Greylock, I led Greylock's investments in Sonder (Series B, IPO $SOND) and Gixo (Seed, acq. by Beachbody), and represented Greylock on the board of both companies.
Product Manager
Joined as a "utility player" before we had product managers, and became the first PM at Pinterest.
Led product for all of our discovery experiences (search, recommendations, home feed, visual search, etc). I also led three acquisitions, launched us internationally, and was responsible for closing our $100m Series C financing.
Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp are two of the best humans and leaders out there.
Vice President
Convertro (acq), CPower (acq), Cornerstone OnDemand (IPO), Diapers.com/Quidsi (acq), KupiVIP, Metalogix (acq), MindBody (IPO), Onestop Internet, Pinterest (IPO), and Yodle (acq).
Consultant
Strategy consultant in start up firm specializing in life sciences.
A.B.
A.B. - Philosophy (cum laude)
N/A
Core professional competencies in venture capital, product leadership, and strategic growth.
Venture Capital
Investment Strategy
Deal Sourcing
Board Management
Fundraising
Mergers & Acquisitions
Angel Investing
Product Management
Product Strategy
Search & Discovery
Network Effects
Go-to-market Strategy
Analytics
E-commerce
Entrepreneurship
Business Strategy
Strategic Planning
Business Development
Start-ups
Competitive Analysis
Team Building
Venture Capital, Consumer Technology, Marketplaces, Network Effects
Artificial Intelligence (AI), SaaS, Digital Media, E-commerce
Sarah Tavel is a Venture Partner at Benchmark, known for her investment focus on network effects and her prior role as a founding Product Manager at Pinterest.
Her investment thesis at Benchmark centers on businesses that can "escape competition," specifically marketplaces, user networks, and vertically focused AI.
Yes, she was the founding Product Manager for search and discovery at Pinterest, joining as one of the first 30 employees in April 2012.
Yes, prior to joining Benchmark in 2017, she was a Partner at Greylock Partners from September 2015 to May 2017.
She maintains a significant social presence with 50.4K followers on Twitter/X and 37.8K followers on LinkedIn.
