Rain Capital
Investment Thesis
Rain Capital is a Silicon Valley venture fund founded in 2018 by Dr. Chenxi Wang, a former Carnegie Mellon professor and Fortune 500 board member. The firm describes itself as women-founded and focused on early-stage cybersecurity and enterprise software. Its current tagline is "Backing the infrastructure of the AI-native enterprise." The thesis rests on three converging domains: AI, cybersecurity, and healthtech. In the firm's words, AI accelerates innovation, cybersecurity protects intelligent systems, and healthtech applies both to human outcomes. In practice the portfolio is overwhelmingly security: AI agent and LLM security (Manifold, Straiker, Lakera, SPLX, Fleak, Ventrilo), identity and non-human identity (Astrix, Permiso, Better Auth), exposure and asset management (runZero, JupiterOne, Seemplicity, Tuskira), industrial and OT security (Claroty), application and product security (OX Security, Clover, Minimus), and zero trust (Elisity, Tetrate). A smaller set of companies sit in privacy and confidential computing (Tinfoil, Oasis Labs). Healthtech is stated in the thesis but is not visible in the current portfolio listing.
Stage Focus
Pre-seed, seed, and Series A, per the firm's site ("Early Conviction"). LinkedIn describes it as a seed-stage fund. Third-party trackers show a typical check around $375K for the managing GP, which fits an early first-check profile. Check size is a third-party estimate, not a firm statement.
Check Size and Lead Tendency
The firm does not publish check sizes or fund size. Third-party data puts typical checks near $375K. The most recent tracked deal is an $8M seed in Manifold (March 2026), which suggests Rain participates in larger seed rounds, not only small first checks. Lead versus follow is not stated; recorded as unknown.
Sourcing Approach
"Expert-led, community-assisted sourcing, partnering with exceptional founders and top academic institutions." The venture partner bench is made up of operators and academics: Dr. David Brumley (Carnegie Mellon professor, Chief AI Officer at Bugcrowd, founder of Mayhem), David B. Cross (CISO at Atlassian, former CISO of Oracle Cloud), and Sidra Ahmed Lefort (multi-stage investor with 8 exits totaling $2B, formerly Munich Re and EDB Singapore). The firm keeps close ties to Carnegie Mellon and hosts events such as Black Hat and SF Tech Week sessions, and publishes a monthly Substack newsletter.
Recent Activity and Exits
Rain has had an unusually strong exit run. The firm reports seven recently announced exits in roughly a year: Lakera (acquired by Check Point, September 2025), SPLX (Zscaler, November 2025), Astrix Security (Cisco, reported ~$400M, May 2026), runZero (Accenture, as part of a ~$4.2B combined deal with Dragos and NetRise, June 2026), Better Auth (Vercel, July 2026), Permiso Security (Okta, reported ~$200M, July 2026), and Elisity (IonQ, up to $1.3B in stock, October 2026). Earlier exits include Capsule8 and Oasis Labs, plus Satori Cyber and Altitude Networks marked acquired on the portfolio page. Other 2025-2026 portfolio news: Straiker's $64M Series A (June 2026), Clover's $36M raise (November 2025), Seemplicity's $50M Series B (2025), Fleak's $5M seed (October 2025), Manifold's $8M seed (March 2026), and Clario emerging from stealth (June 2026). The firm appears to be actively deploying; the portfolio page shows new names (Manifold, Clover, Clario, Tinfoil, Minimus) added in the last year.
Portfolio Highlights
Claroty (OT/ICS security, a large late-stage company), JupiterOne, Elisity, OX Security, Astrix, Lakera, SPLX, runZero, Straiker, Seemplicity, Project Discovery, Tetrate, Bolster, Mitiga, Simbian, Tuskira, SOC Prime, Runway, Lema AI, Minimus, Fleak, Clario, Tinfoil, Manifold, Clover, Ventrilo AI.
Team
Dr. Chenxi Wang (Founder and General Partner), Sidra Ahmed Lefort, David B. Cross and Dr. David Brumley (Venture Partners), Mark Godschalk (CFO and COO), Charisse Castagnoli (Counsel), Candice (Yi) Luo (Chief of Staff).
Decision Process
Chenxi Wang is the founder and managing GP and the evident decision-maker, with venture partners providing domain diligence and sourcing. Formal committee structure is not disclosed. Timeline and warm-intro requirements are not stated; the firm lists [email protected] and a Connect page for inbound.
Founder Preferences
Technical, security-native founders, often with academic or practitioner credibility, building for CISOs and enterprise security teams. Strong preference for AI-era security problems: agent security, AI red teaming, non-human identity, runtime protection.
Geographic Focus
Based in the Bay Area (Palo Alto per trackers); portfolio includes US and Israeli and European companies (Astrix, Seemplicity, Lakera, Mitiga). No stated geographic restriction.