Firms

Decibel

United States · San Francisco, California · Menlo Park, California · San Francisco Bay Area

decibel.vc

signal.nfx.com

goldi.ai

Decibel is an early-stage venture capital firm created in partnership with Cisco, investing in essential infrastructure software used by developers, data engineers, and cybersecurity teams. The firm is based in Palo Alto, California and was founded in 2019 by Jon Sakoda.

Founded: 2019
Type: Venture capital

Funds3

Decibel Partners III2026-04-022026-04-02—
Joint Fund III and Affiliates Form D/A: USD 317373737 sold/total offering, zero remaining, first sale 2025-02-07. Do not count affiliates again; not current AUM or independently verified final close.
Decibel Partners II2024-01-032024-01-03—
Form D/A filed 2024-01-03: USD 282695000 sold and offering total, zero remaining; first sale 2022-01-24. Securities sold, not independently verified final close or AUM. Supersedes USD 275m target.
Decibel Partners I20212021$225M
Raised oversubscribed Fund I; placement agent undated source. January 2021 close reported by PEI, exact legal final-close date unknown; not AUM.

Team

Jon Sakoda Decibel, partner	$2M$1M – $10M	Menlo Park, California
Alessio Fanelli Decibel, partner	$2M$1M – $6M	San Francisco, California
Dan Nguyen-Huu Decibel, partner	$1M$100K – $10M	San Francisco Bay Area
Stacey Wueste Decibel, partner	—$1M – $10M	San Francisco Bay Area
Sudip Chakrabarti Decibel, partner	—$1M – $10M	United States
Lauren Ipsen Decibel, Talent Partner	—— – —
Stacey Ernest Decibel, CFO	—— – —
Tanya Dargel Decibel, Administrative Partner	—— – —

Investments

team@apexlogos.ai1 hour ago
Investment-fund research reviewed 2026-10-06. Publicly identified funds, dates, amounts and fundraising status are below. Undisclosed commitments remain unknown; this is not a complete register of private SPVs or parallel entities. Fund sizes and stages | Vehicle / date | Amount and status | Evidence and qualification | | --- | --- | --- | | Decibel Partners I, vintage 2019–2021 | **USD 225 million**, oversubscribed fund raised | Placement agent [Denning & Company funds-raised page](https://www.denningandcompany.com/funds-raised/), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, specifically lists Fund I and North American B2B early-stage technology. [PEI profile](https://www.privateequityinternational.com/institution-profiles/decibel-partners.html), undated, accessed same date, lists January 2021 close, with amount paywalled. Exact legal final-close date is not established by Denning. | | Decibel Partners II, 2022 first sale / January 2024 amendment | **USD 282,695,000 sold**, equal total offering, USD 0 remaining, 93 investors | [Issuer's SEC Form D/A](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1904938/000190493824000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml), signed/filed 2024-01-03; first sale 2022-01-24. This updates the **USD 275 million target** reported by [Global Venturing](https://globalventuring.com/corporate/decibel-makes-noise-with-275m-fund-target/), 2022-01-31. Do not retain the target as the final raised amount. | | Decibel Partners III, LP and Decibel Partners III Affiliates, LP; 2025 vintage | **USD 317,373,737 sold**, equal total offering, USD 0 remaining, 75 investors | [Joint issuer SEC Form D/A](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2054591/000123191926000302/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml), signed/filed **2026-04-02**, first sale 2025-02-07. Because both issuers appear in one notice, retain this as the reported offering amount and do not count the affiliates again. This is the latest-known main fund supported in this research. PEI lists April 2026 close. | | Decibel Investments I, LP, December 2025 | **USD 21 million offering target; not verified closed** | [Form D Explorer transcription](https://www.formdexplorer.com/filing/0002098863-25-000001/), filing 2025-12-05, reports USD 0 sold. The original SEC document could not be fetched. [PEI profile](https://www.privateequityinternational.com/institution-profiles/decibel-partners.html) lists this vehicle in market from December 2025. Do not import as USD 21 million raised without direct filing verification. | SEC notices are issuer disclosures, not SEC audited endorsements. Their amounts are securities sold, not current AUM, deployable capital or check size. No verified current total AUM was found. Do not sum vehicles without resolving companion structures. Current official strategy supports **earliest-stage / day-one investing**; verified transactions below support seed and Series A, with follow-on participation at later stages in the baseline. Decibel's launch-era [founder essay](https://www.decibel.vc/articles/decibel-the-exponential-power-of-our-entrepreneurs), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, describes conviction investments as large as **USD 5–15 million** before significant traction. This is historical strategy language, not a current minimum, maximum or sweet spot. Later follow-ons do not establish a general later-stage entry mandate. Funds recorded in Adex after this review: | Fund | Disclosed amount | Announcement / filing date | | --- | --- | --- | | Decibel Partners I | USD 225000000 | 2021 | | Decibel Partners II | Undisclosed / unverified | 2024-01-03 | | Decibel Partners III | Undisclosed / unverified | 2026-04-02 |
team@apexlogos.ai2 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiDecibel / sha256:caa3222eea0437cf74b0a67e5fb03793acb9fba25a0a9ca62726c7906aa151c9 / part 2 of 2 Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats. | **E2B** | [Company-issued funding release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/e2b-raises-a-21m-series-a-to-offer-cloud-for-ai-agents-to-fortune-100-302514540.html), **2025-07-28**, confirms Decibel participation in **USD 21 million Series A**, led by Insight Partners. | Open-source execution/cloud infrastructure for AI agents. Verified technical infrastructure investment; deep-tech classification is weaker than Unconventional AI because infrastructure engineering alone does not establish scientific novelty. | These are substantive verified examples, not a complete audit of all 45 snapshot participations. Ordinary design software, travel software, IT help-desk automation and marketing/financial AI applications should not become deep-tech records solely because they appear in this portfolio. ## Neurotech and adjacent cognitive-health investments **No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked**, using a direct-neural-technology definition encompassing neural sensing, stimulation, brain interfaces and related neural devices. This does not establish absence across the complete portfolio. **Mantis Biotech / Parva is a verified adjacent investment that deserves review.** A [Forbes contributor report](https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2026/07/31/ai-cognitive-health-startup-mantis-biotech-rethinks-how-women-are-diagnosed/?ss=ai-in-healthcare), **2026-07-31**, reports **USD 7.4 million funding led by Decibel**, with Y Combinator and Liquid 2 participation, and quotes Jon Sakoda. It describes passive cognitive monitoring from typing/clicking and individual baselines. This is contributor reporting; round-close date and Decibel amount are not given. [TechCrunch, 2026-03-30](https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/30/mantis-biotech-is-making-digital-twins-of-humans-to-help-solve-medicines-data-availability-problem/) corroborates the investor/funding lead (search-index access), while [January directory data](https://justraised.netlify.app/companies/mantis-biotech) report USD 6.3 million; prefer the later named reporting and avoid claiming those numbers describe the same single close. [Mantis's official website](https://mantisbiotech.com/), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, describes predictive individual models from wearable physiology, digital activity and clinical records, including cognitive-baseline monitoring and psychiatric-relapse warning. [Parva's official site](https://joinparva.com/), undated, accessed same date, describes cognitive change tracking and clinician-facing records and says the app itself does not diagnose or treat conditions. Neither page confirms investment terms. Classify as **cognitive digital biomarkers / neurohealth adjacent**, not verified neural sensing or BCI. Model efficacy, prediction horizons and clinical claims remain company assertions rather than independently validated research findings in this file. Unconventional AI's neuroscience/brain analogies also do not make it direct neurotech. Decibel Therapeutics and Decibel Bio are separate investee companies with similar names; their hearing/plant biology financing is not evidence about this VC firm's investments. Partner investments before Decibel, including Jessica Leão's MosaicML and Atomic Semi investments at Maverick, must stay attributed to the earlier firm. ## Conflicts, missing information and later Adex review 1. **Fund conflict:** low-quality profiles and a recently indexed Edgepedia article report USD 50 million Fund I / around USD 633 million aggregate capital. Denning's direct Fund I evidence says USD 225 million. Prefer the placement-agent source pending Fund I original filings. The April 2026 Fund III primary filing supersedes articles retaining USD 300 million or USD 321.6 million. Do not equate aggregate raised capital with AUM. 2. **Sublime Security amount and attribution:** snapshot's 2025-10-28 Series C says USD 60 million, whereas [official Series C release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sublime-security-raises-150m-in-series-c-funding-as-industry-first-ai-agents-accelerate-growth-302596266.html), 2025-10-28, says **USD 150 million**. Its listed participants do **not** name Decibel. Do not carry the snapshot's current-round participation forward merely because Decibel invested earlier; separately recheck Series A/B and Series C attribution. 3. **Likely duplicates:** Scrunch/Scrunch AI; Strella/Strella AI; Veris/Veris.ai; Push/Push Security; Nebulock records with missing dates. Penpot and Kaleidos may relate through the operating company. Verify exact company identity and same-round identity before consolidation. No database modifications performed. 4. **Team currency:** the official [team page](https://www.decibel.vc/team), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, lists Jon Sakoda, Dan Nguyen-Huu and Alessio Fanelli along with functional partners. It does not list snapshot partner Sudip Chakrabarti. Absence is a review lead, not a verified departure date. Jessica Leão is now at a16z according to that firm's official bio; her earlier Decibel investment remains firm-attributable. 5. **Unresolved:** current check policy; headquarters versus fund-registration address; Fund I exact close; Investments I final size/purpose; complete neurotech coverage; undisclosed/still-stealth investments; independent Mantis clinical validation. No newer main-fund announcement beyond Fund III was verified in the searches conducted. 6. Suggested later research-only review: attach Fund III and II dated filing evidence; add Unconventional AI and Mantis leads with correct classifications and attribution; investigate aliases and Sublime conflict; preserve baseline records until separately reviewed. This file authorizes no Adex/database update. All external URLs were accessed or searched on **2026-10-06**. Publication/filing dates appear alongside claims where available; undated official pages use the access date. Research used the saved snapshot, direct NFX read, firm/issuer websites, official investee releases, SEC filings and identified reporting; search-index-only or inaccessible sources are explicitly qualified.
team@apexlogos.ai2 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiDecibel / sha256:caa3222eea0437cf74b0a67e5fb03793acb9fba25a0a9ca62726c7906aa151c9 / part 1 of 2 Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats. # Decibel — GoldiDecibel - Exact Adex ID: `GoldiDecibel`; canonical record: https://adex.page/firms/GoldiDecibel - Research date: **2026-10-06**. Status: **complete research**, with explicitly unresolved items below. - Official firm site: https://www.decibel.vc/ ## Summary and identity Decibel is an independent enterprise venture firm founded with Cisco in March 2019 and led by Jon Sakoda. Cisco explicitly distinguishes its independent investment decisions and management company from Cisco Investments. Its current positioning emphasizes the earliest technical-founder stages in developer platforms, cybersecurity, data, ML and AI. This is principally a technical software investor, with a verified newer hardware investment in Unconventional AI. A cognitive-health investment, Mantis Biotech, is relevant to neurotech review but does not establish a brain-interface or neural-sensing mandate. [Cisco launch, 2019-03-26](https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-fuels-innovation-engine-with-investment-in-new-early-stage-vc-fund); [current strategy, undated](https://www.decibel.vc/why-decibel), accessed 2026-10-06. ## Starting evidence: saved Adex and NFX Signal The exact-ID snapshot `data/research/_sources/GoldiDecibel.adex.json`, retrieved 2026-10-06 at 19:29 UTC using read-only MCP Search, contains one matching record named Decibel. It describes a 2019 Palo Alto infrastructure-software firm and contains 45 investment participation records, eight team roles, no check minimum/maximum/sweet spot, and no independently supported fund-size field. Leads include Abacus.AI, Censys, Botpress, Dreadnode, E2B, Sublime Security, Akuity, Slim.ai, Penpot and numerous AI/security products. Alias duplication and round-value problems are detailed below. Existing data and Goldi.ai references are leads, not independent confirmation. [NFX Signal firm profile](https://signal.nfx.com/firms/decibel-partners) was directly read on 2026-10-06. The accessible page identifies Decibel Partners and locations San Francisco, Menlo Park and San Francisco Bay Area; its visible content is mostly a co-investor heading. It did not expose reliable fund amounts or detailed strategy/portfolio in the retrieved view. Personal-history leads in the saved snapshot include [Jon Sakoda's Signal profile](https://signal.nfx.com/investors/jon-sakoda); those personal records are not sufficient for Decibel attribution. NFX location differs from the Adex Palo Alto description; the Fund III filing below uses Menlo Park as the issuer address, not necessarily its operating headquarters. ## Fund sizes and stages | Vehicle / date | Amount and status | Evidence and qualification | | --- | --- | --- | | Decibel Partners I, vintage 2019–2021 | **USD 225 million**, oversubscribed fund raised | Placement agent [Denning & Company funds-raised page](https://www.denningandcompany.com/funds-raised/), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, specifically lists Fund I and North American B2B early-stage technology. [PEI profile](https://www.privateequityinternational.com/institution-profiles/decibel-partners.html), undated, accessed same date, lists January 2021 close, with amount paywalled. Exact legal final-close date is not established by Denning. | | Decibel Partners II, 2022 first sale / January 2024 amendment | **USD 282,695,000 sold**, equal total offering, USD 0 remaining, 93 investors | [Issuer's SEC Form D/A](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1904938/000190493824000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml), signed/filed 2024-01-03; first sale 2022-01-24. This updates the **USD 275 million target** reported by [Global Venturing](https://globalventuring.com/corporate/decibel-makes-noise-with-275m-fund-target/), 2022-01-31. Do not retain the target as the final raised amount. | | Decibel Partners III, LP and Decibel Partners III Affiliates, LP; 2025 vintage | **USD 317,373,737 sold**, equal total offering, USD 0 remaining, 75 investors | [Joint issuer SEC Form D/A](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2054591/000123191926000302/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml), signed/filed **2026-04-02**, first sale 2025-02-07. Because both issuers appear in one notice, retain this as the reported offering amount and do not count the affiliates again. This is the latest-known main fund supported in this research. PEI lists April 2026 close. | | Decibel Investments I, LP, December 2025 | **USD 21 million offering target; not verified closed** | [Form D Explorer transcription](https://www.formdexplorer.com/filing/0002098863-25-000001/), filing 2025-12-05, reports USD 0 sold. The original SEC document could not be fetched. [PEI profile](https://www.privateequityinternational.com/institution-profiles/decibel-partners.html) lists this vehicle in market from December 2025. Do not import as USD 21 million raised without direct filing verification. | SEC notices are issuer disclosures, not SEC audited endorsements. Their amounts are securities sold, not current AUM, deployable capital or check size. No verified current total AUM was found. Do not sum vehicles without resolving companion structures. Current official strategy supports **earliest-stage / day-one investing**; verified transactions below support seed and Series A, with follow-on participation at later stages in the baseline. Decibel's launch-era [founder essay](https://www.decibel.vc/articles/decibel-the-exponential-power-of-our-entrepreneurs), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, describes conviction investments as large as **USD 5–15 million** before significant traction. This is historical strategy language, not a current minimum, maximum or sweet spot. Later follow-ons do not establish a general later-stage entry mandate. ## Named previous deep-tech investments Classification is an assessment of the underlying technology. Technical software is distinguished from ordinary application SaaS; no blanket deep-tech label is applied to every portfolio company. Amounts below are whole company rounds, not Decibel checks. | Company | Verified firm attribution, round and date | Technology rationale / caveat | | --- | --- | --- | | **Unconventional AI** | [a16z's official Jessica Leão biography](https://a16z.com/author/jessica-leao/), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, explicitly says she led Unconventional AI investment while a Decibel partner. [Company launch](https://unconventional.ws/blog/introducing-unconventional-ai/), **2025-12-08**, announces **USD 475 million seed**, led by Lightspeed and a16z; its abbreviated investor list does not name Decibel. Firm participation is established by biography, but Decibel check and exact participation allocation remain unknown. | Strong deep-tech hardware example: silicon circuits with nonlinear dynamics for energy-efficient AI, co-designed hardware and algorithms. Brain-inspired computing is not evidence of human neural recording/stimulation or BCI. Official current domain https://unconv.ai/; avoid guessed `unconventional.ai`, which is parked. | | **Dreadnode** | [Official company Series A release](https://dreadnode.io/company/newsroom/series-a/), **2025-02-25**, announces **USD 14 million Series A led by Decibel**. [Firm investment essay](https://www.decibel.vc/articles/dreadnode-why-great-offense-drives-defense-in-ai-security), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, independently confirms its investment. | Research-led offensive AI, adversarial ML and model evaluation. Advanced AI/security software qualifies under a broad computational deep-tech definition, with less physical/scientific risk than semiconductor or biotech investments. | | **Abacus.AI**, previously RealityEngines.AI | [Company-issued PR Newswire release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/realityenginesai-rebrands-as-abacusai-announces-series-a-funding-and-general-availability-of-the-worlds-first-autonomous-ai-service-301093030.html), **2020-07-14**, names “Decibel Ventures” in **USD 13 million Series A**, led by Index. [Decibel's own investment essay](https://www.decibel.vc/articles/abacus-predicting-your-future-has-never-been-easier), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, resolves firm identity. | Autonomous deep-learning model development, neural architecture search and debiasing research. Technical AI rather than a generic application label; artificial neural networks are not neurotechnology. |
team@apexlogos.ai22 days ago
MATCH

$70M2026-03-31	Censys	Decibel
$150M2025-10-28	Sublime Security	Decibel
$14M2025-10-16	Strella AI	Bessemer Venture Partners, Decibel
$—2025-07-29	Nebulock	Bain Capital, In-Q-Tel, Avid Ventures, Decibel, Zetta Venture Partners, Step Function
$21M2025-07-28	E2B	Decibel, Kaya VC
$37M2025-07-28	Dropzone AI	Decibel
$15M2025-07-22	Scrunch AI	Decibel
$—2025-07-22	Scrunch	Decibel
$4M2025-07-17	Confident Security	Decibel
$25M2025-06-23	Botpress	Decibel, Inovia Capital, Jon Sakoda, Magaly Charbonneau
$14M2025-02-25	Dreadnode	Decibel
$75M2025	SpecterOps	Decibel
$15M2025	Scrunch	Decibel
$60M2024-12-12	Sublime Security	Decibel, Dan Nguyen-Huu
$25M2024-10-23	Fixify	Decibel, Dan Nguyen-Huu
$20M2024-04-24	Sublime Security	Decibel, Dan Nguyen-Huu
$7M2024	Delphos Labs	DCVC, Decibel
$75M2023-10-24	Censys	Decibel
$3M2023-06-01	Platformatic	Decibel
$15M2023-04-03	Push Security	Decibel
$26M2022-11-30	Pangea	Decibel
$8M2022-09-27	Penpot	Decibel, Sudip Chakrabarti, Jon Sakoda
$4M2022-07-19	Push Security	Decibel, Jon Sakoda
$30M2022-06-15	CUBE	Bain Capital, Operator Collective, ENIAC Ventures, Battery Ventures, Decibel, GTMfund
$20M2022-05-16	Akuity	Decibel, Jon Sakoda
$15M2022	runZero	Decibel
$10M2022	NocoDB	Decibel, Flex Capital
$12M2021-11-04	Propelo	Decibel, ENIAC Ventures, Dan Nguyen-Huu
$6M2021-11-02	Magnify	Decibel
$34M2021-09-23	Spotnana	Decibel, ICONIQ Capital
$30M2021-07-27	Blameless	Lightspeed, Third Point Ventures, Accel, Decibel, 75 & Sunny, Jon Sakoda
$15M2021-04-28	Botpress	Decibel, Inovia Capital, Jon Sakoda, Magaly Charbonneau
$22M2020-11-18	Abacus.ai	Decibel, Jon Sakoda
$15M2020-08-05	Censys	Decibel
$13M2020-07-14	Abacus.ai	Decibel, Eric Schmidt, Lan Xuezhao, Jon Sakoda
$8MUnknown date	Veris	Decibel
$30MUnknown date	Push	Decibel
$15MUnknown date	Pixee	Decibel
$15MUnknown date	Brightwave	Decibel
$25MUnknown date	Nebulock	Bain Capital, FirstMark Capital, Decibel, Zetta Venture Partners, Step Function
$25MUnknown date	CUBE	Bain Capital, ENIAC Ventures, Databricks Ventures, Decibel, 645 Ventures
$12M2023-02-02	Kaleidos	Decibel
$31M2022-01-26	Slim.ai	boldstart ventures, Decibel
$8MUnknown date	Veris.ai	Decibel
$14MUnknown date	Strella	Decibel

Funds3

Team

Co-investing

Investments