The prominent venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group said today it has added three new partners to its core investor team.

The new partners are Loren Alhadeff, Mark Nelson and Ted Kummert, and they’re tasked with helping Madrona in its mission to support, build and scale up its portfolio companies as they navigate pivotal points in their growth.

Seattle-based Madrona is one of the most prominent VC firms in the tech startup industry, focusing on seed, early-stage and acceleration-stage companies that promise to disrupt enormous existing markets. Madrona was most famously one of the earliest backers of Amazon.com Inc., which has since become one of the world’s biggest retail firms and established itself as the leader of the cloud computing industry.

Madrona’s other successful bets include Snowflake Inc., the cloud data warehouse company that dominates the enterprise data industry, and Isilon Systems Inc., which pioneered clustered storage systems before being acquired by EMC Corp. More recent bets include startups such as Observe Inc., Smartsheet Inc. and iSpotTV Inc.

New partner Alhadeff joins Madrona after spending 14 years leading the sales organization at DocuSign Inc., where he most recently served as its chief operating officer. Alhadeff helped grow DocuSign’s annual revenue from $2.5 million to more than $2.5 billion as that company pioneered the concept of digital signatures.

Alhadeff will assist Madrona’s portfolio companies with their go-to-market strategies, developing their sales teams and field leadership. His intention is to help startups build the sales teams they need to realize their full potential.

“For engineering and product-led companies, the shift to building an effective sales organization can be confusing and full of false starts,” Alhadeff said. “I’ve seen it all, and it is exciting to work with companies at all stages as they explore how to best reach customers.”

Nelson most recently served as the chief executive of Tableau Software Inc., where he helped to oversee its $15.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce Inc. in 2019. Prior to that, he also assisted with SAP SE’s $8.3 billion acquisition of Concur Technologies Inc. in 2014. As such, he’s a man who knows what it takes to achieve great outcomes for startups, and will play a key role in helping Madrona’s portfolio companies to achieve their potential, while also helping to identify promising startups.

Finally, Kummert returns to Madrona as a venture partner, having left the firm in 2017 following a nearly six-year stint. His most recent experience saw him serve as chief product development officer at UiPath Inc. and, prior to that, a similar role at Apptio Inc. He helped both companies to go public via initial public offerings. Once again, Kummert will assist Madrona’s investment team to identify potential investments and help product and engineering leaders to overcome the challenges they face.

“A deep bench of world-class operators helping early-stage companies build and scale their organizations is critical to our success,” Madrona Managing Director Scott Jacobson said.

Madrona most recently raised a hefty $690 million for two oversubscribed funds, including its $430 million Madrona Fund 9 and $260 million Acceleration Fund 3.

Photo: Madrona Venture Group