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29 Oct 2026DuckDB Labs and MotherDuckAikins Laryea · 10 min26 Oct 2026How dbt Grew from Consulting Projects into a Software BusinessAikins Laryea · 4 min22 Oct 2026How Airbyte Grew on GitHubAikins Laryea · 5 min21 Oct 2026How PostHog Grew on GitHubAikins Laryea · 6 min16 Oct 2026How Chroma Grew on GitHubAikins Laryea · 5 min14 Oct 2026How Supabase Grew on GitHubAikins Laryea · 7 min
29 Oct 2026DuckDB Labs and MotherDuckDuckDB began as CWI research and drew its first wide attention on Hacker News in 2020. Its creators funded it through contracts, while MotherDuck raised $100 million by 2023.Aikins Laryea · 10 min26 Oct 2026How dbt Grew from Consulting Projects into a Software BusinessClient projects funded dbt's early development. Its GitHub history and funding announcements trace Fishtown Analytics' shift toward software revenue and consulting partnerships.Aikins Laryea · 4 min22 Oct 2026How Airbyte Grew on GitHubAirbyte announced $181.2 million across three rounds in 2021. Its GitHub history shows a connector toolkit taking shape; its published Series B pitch explains how it measured adoption.Aikins Laryea · 5 min21 Oct 2026How PostHog Grew on GitHubPostHog's public GitHub history, measured year by year: a Hacker News launch four weeks after the repository opened, new stars that held level through a $70 million Series D and a $75 million Series E, and more than four times as many people on pull requests in its busiest month of 2026 as in 2024's.Aikins Laryea · 6 min16 Oct 2026How Chroma Grew on GitHubChroma's public GitHub history, measured year by year: an active learning library in 2022, a launch on 14 February 2023, an $18 million seed seven weeks later, and a move to Rust that the star count does not show.Aikins Laryea · 5 min14 Oct 2026How Supabase Grew on GitHubSupabase's public GitHub history, measured year by year: 80 of 82 commits from its CEO in 2019, a star spike in May 2020, its biggest year for new stars in 2025, and $996 million raised across seven rounds. What the repository showed before each round.Aikins Laryea · 7 min1 Oct 2026Think-Reason-Learn Launches FounderBrain, Free Meeting Feedback for FoundersFounderBrain, the first pre-trained model from Think-Reason-Learn, gives founders free AI feedback on how they speak in pitches and meetings, inside Claude, ChatGPT and Codex.Ben Griffin · 7 min1 Sep 2026YC Summer 2026 Batch, Ranked. The B2B Startups Worth a First MeetingThe YC S26 Startup Radar from Vela, a tier-1 quant VC. All 122 B2B companies in the YC Summer 2026 batch scored with quantitative models and two taste profiles, Vela's own and one built from the public track record of a16z, a tier-1 VC. Filter, sort, and decide who to meet first.Yigit Ihlamur25 Aug 2026Can AI Predict Startup Success?Vela ran a live AI arena scoring GPT, Claude, and Gemini against real startup outcomes for two months. Four early signals, and a preview of VC Arena and VCRouter.Yigit Ihlamur · 9 min25 Aug 2026How Top VC Firms Evaluate FoundersData from ~70 seed rounds (2024-2026) shows how Sequoia, Benchmark, a16z, Founders Fund, Thrive, and Lightspeed pick founders. Six personas reveal your best-fit firm.Yigit Ihlamur · 14 min9 May 2026How Founders Use an AI CoachHow founders use Vela Coach beyond VC pitch prep. The patterns AI surfaces in sales calls, interview rounds, and team one-on-ones.Yigit Ihlamur · 9 min5 May 2026Contrarian vs Consensus in Venture CapitalMost legendary venture deals (OpenAI, Wiz, Anthropic) were not contrarian. A quant VC framework for contrarian vs consensus investing as math, not romance.Yigit Ihlamur · 7 min3 May 2026AI Coach for FoundersVela Coach is the open-source AI coach for founders. Reads your last 90 days of meetings and surfaces the leadership and fundraising patterns a $500-an-hour executive coach would.Yigit Ihlamur · 11 min19 Apr 2026What Is a Quant VC?A plain-English guide to quant VCs, AI-native VCs, and scientific venture capital — how Vela Partners uses data and AI to fund seed-stage AI founders.Yigit Ihlamur · 6 min22 Mar 202619 Emerging Trends Reshaping Open-Source AI Infrastructure in 2026Vela Partners, an AI-native quant VC, analyzed 854 open-source repos to surface 19 AI infrastructure trends reshaping 2026 — from MCP to agentic frameworks.Yigit Ihlamur · 15 min7 Mar 2026KuzuDB for Production AI AgentsKuzuDB was archived in 2025. Vela Partners — a leading quant VC — forked it with concurrent writes for multi-agent AI. Benchmarks: 374x faster than Neo4j.Aikins Laryea & Yigit Ihlamur · 12 min
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The Vela Partners blog

Notices from the valley.

Every notice

  1. 29 Oct 2026DuckDB Labs and MotherDuck: Contracts, Venture Capital and an AWS AcquisitionDuckDB began as CWI research and drew its first wide attention on Hacker News in 2020. Its creators funded it through contracts, while MotherDuck raised $100 million by 2023.Aikins Laryea · 10 min read
  2. 26 Oct 2026How dbt Grew from Consulting Projects into a Software BusinessClient projects funded dbt's early development. Its GitHub history and funding announcements trace Fishtown Analytics' shift toward software revenue and consulting partnerships.Aikins Laryea · 4 min read
  3. 22 Oct 2026How Airbyte Grew on GitHub: Three Funding Rounds in 2021Airbyte announced $181.2 million across three rounds in 2021. Its GitHub history shows a connector toolkit taking shape; its published Series B pitch explains how it measured adoption.Aikins Laryea · 5 min read
  4. 21 Oct 2026How PostHog Grew on GitHub: From Open-Source Analytics to a $1.4 Billion Series EPostHog's public GitHub history, measured year by year: a Hacker News launch four weeks after the repository opened, new stars that held level through a $70 million Series D and a $75 million Series E, and more than four times as many people on pull requests in its busiest month of 2026 as in 2024's.Aikins Laryea · 6 min read
  5. 16 Oct 2026How Chroma Grew on GitHub: From an Active Learning Library to an $18 Million SeedChroma's public GitHub history, measured year by year: an active learning library in 2022, a launch on 14 February 2023, an $18 million seed seven weeks later, and a move to Rust that the star count does not show.Aikins Laryea · 5 min read
  6. 14 Oct 2026How Supabase Grew on GitHub: From One Committer to a $10 Billion Postgres PlatformSupabase's public GitHub history, measured year by year: 80 of 82 commits from its CEO in 2019, a star spike in May 2020, its biggest year for new stars in 2025, and $996 million raised across seven rounds. What the repository showed before each round.Aikins Laryea · 7 min read
  7. 1 Oct 2026Think-Reason-Learn Launches FounderBrain, Free Meeting Feedback for FoundersFounderBrain, the first pre-trained model from Think-Reason-Learn, gives founders free AI feedback on how they speak in pitches and meetings, inside Claude, ChatGPT and Codex.Ben Griffin · 7 min read
  8. 1 Sep 2026YC Summer 2026 Batch, Ranked. The B2B Startups Worth a First MeetingThe YC S26 Startup Radar from Vela, a tier-1 quant VC. All 122 B2B companies in the YC Summer 2026 batch scored with quantitative models and two taste profiles, Vela's own and one built from the public track record of a16z, a tier-1 VC. Filter, sort, and decide who to meet first.Yigit Ihlamur
  9. 25 Aug 2026Can AI Predict Startup Success? What Two Months of a Live Forecasting Arena Taught UsVela ran a live AI arena scoring GPT, Claude, and Gemini against real startup outcomes for two months. Four early signals, and a preview of VC Arena and VCRouter.Yigit Ihlamur · 9 min read
  10. 25 Aug 2026How Top VC Firms Evaluate Founders: The Taste Matrix of Sequoia, Benchmark, a16z, Founders Fund, Thrive, and LightspeedData from ~70 seed rounds (2024-2026) shows how Sequoia, Benchmark, a16z, Founders Fund, Thrive, and Lightspeed pick founders. Six personas reveal your best-fit firm.Yigit Ihlamur · 14 min read
  11. 9 May 2026How Founders Use an AI Coach: Sales, Hiring, and LeadershipHow founders use Vela Coach beyond VC pitch prep. The patterns AI surfaces in sales calls, interview rounds, and team one-on-ones.Yigit Ihlamur · 9 min read
  12. 5 May 2026Contrarian vs Consensus in Venture Capital: A Quant VC FrameworkMost legendary venture deals (OpenAI, Wiz, Anthropic) were not contrarian. A quant VC framework for contrarian vs consensus investing as math, not romance.Yigit Ihlamur · 7 min read
  13. 3 May 2026AI Coach for Founders: How to Prep for a VC Pitch With Vela CoachVela Coach is the open-source AI coach for founders. Reads your last 90 days of meetings and surfaces the leadership and fundraising patterns a $500-an-hour executive coach would.Yigit Ihlamur · 11 min read
  14. 19 Apr 2026What Is a Quant VC? A Practical Guide to Quantitative and AI-Native Venture CapitalA plain-English guide to quant VCs, AI-native VCs, and scientific venture capital — how Vela Partners uses data and AI to fund seed-stage AI founders.Yigit Ihlamur · 6 min read
  15. 22 Mar 202619 Emerging Trends Reshaping Open-Source AI Infrastructure in 2026Vela Partners, an AI-native quant VC, analyzed 854 open-source repos to surface 19 AI infrastructure trends reshaping 2026 — from MCP to agentic frameworks.Yigit Ihlamur · 15 min read
  16. 7 Mar 2026KuzuDB for Production AI Agents: Our Fork, the Benchmarks, and Why Graph Memory WorksKuzuDB was archived in 2025. Vela Partners — a leading quant VC — forked it with concurrent writes for multi-agent AI. Benchmarks: 374x faster than Neo4j.Aikins Laryea & Yigit Ihlamur · 12 min read