People
The people who do the work.
Four partners, a small operating bench, and a single principle: only invest where you can be useful — and only with the kind of founder whose attention runs the way ours does. We are unlikely to grow.
Partners
- 01
Daniel Reiss
Founding Partner
With a10 since 2021
Before a10, Daniel was a partner at a generalist seed firm for seven years, where he led the early-stage technical practice. Earlier, he founded an analytics company acquired by an infrastructure firm in 2014 and spent two years inside it.
He writes the firm's annual letter and reads almost every cold email. He is interested, somewhat narrowly, in compilers, formal methods, and the people who care about them.
daniel@a10.vcCurrently reading: Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language - 02
Mira Iskandar
Partner
With a10 since 2022
Mira was a research engineer at a frontier AI lab and, before that, a member of technical staff at a systems-software company. She co-authored two of the most-cited papers on training-time interpretability and started two of her own companies before joining a10.
She covers the firm's work in applied AI and is the partner most likely to ask, on a first call, what the founder thinks is wrong with their approach. She has a low tolerance for meetings that perform interest rather than hold it.
mira@a10.vcCurrently reading: Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera - 03
Henrik Søderberg
Partner
With a10 since 2022
Henrik spent eight years as a principal engineer at infrastructure companies, including a stretch as the second engineering hire at a content delivery network. He has, by his own count, started a string of failed companies; he considers each of them a useful education.
He covers the firm's work in systems software and developer tools. He prefers conversations that do not stop until the problem stops moving, and he is responsible, over a partners' lunch in 2023, for the rule that no investment memo may exceed five pages.
henrik@a10.vcCurrently reading: Brian Cantwell Smith, On the Origin of Objects - 04
Quinn Adeyemi
Partner, Operations
With a10 since 2023
Quinn built engineering teams at three category-defining companies before joining a10. She is the partner the firm's founders speak to first when they are hiring, restructuring, or trying to recover from a difficult quarter.
She runs the firm's recruiting practice and reads the code reviews of every portfolio company on a rotation. She holds, like everyone here, a faint suspicion of people who claim to context-switch easily, and keeps the firm's only spreadsheet.
quinn@a10.vcCurrently reading: Frederick Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
Operating bench
Anonymous, on purpose.
A small group of operators and researchers we keep on retainer for the firm's portfolio. They are not advertised because their employers would prefer it that way. All six are, by self-description, the kind of person who has never quite stopped working on the same problem. Our founders know who they are.
An applied cryptographer
Security & infra
A formerly-public CTO
Hiring & technical leadership
A research mathematician
Frontier AI & evaluation
A clinical neuroscientist
Bio & applied research
A staff compiler engineer
Languages & runtimes
A regulatory counsel
Health, finance, defense
For founders
The most direct path is email.