Ken Elefant
Ken Elefant is a partner at Sorenson, where he co-founded the firm’s Ventures practice in 2017. He began his career in Silicon Valley at leading venture capital firms in 1999 and has over 6 years in operational roles at technology companies. Ken enjoys working closely with entrepreneurs to help them attack new market opportunities and gain access to key initial customers and partners. His efforts have led to recognition as one of the most connected people in tech.
Q&A
Q: What do you enjoy most when you aren't working?
I'm playing pickleball. I'm not that good, but I find it fun when I have an equal match.
Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Take computer science combined with business in undergrad. It will give you so much more perspective.
Q: What advice would you give to founders?
Figure out who would be your ultimate Board Member. If you’re building a SaaS company, that’s probably Mark Benioff. Go network your way to Mark Benioff, see if he wants to invest a bit and be an advisor in your company.
Bio
Before joining Sorenson, Ken was Managing Director at Intel Capital and Vice President at Intel Corporation, where he led the software and cybersecurity groups and invested in several market-leading companies, including AtHoc, Prolexic, Forescout and DocuSign, among many others.
Prior to Intel Capital, Ken was a Founding General Partner at Opus Capital. While at Opus, he served on the board of a number of companies, one of the earliest of which was Spock Networks, an investment he cites as one of the most transformative experiences of his early career, particularly because he endured the global financial crisis with the team– facing adversity, armed with an incredible product and amazing team, Ken lived to tell the tale.
“I remember working at Claris Corp, Apple’s software subsidiary, right after undergrad. There were so many talented people, it was crazy. I was a sponge, learning everything I could. I see the same learning capability within so many of our founders.”
Ken received an MBA from Harvard Business School, holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of Business, and is a Kauffman Fellow. As a former college wrestler, Ken loves to see similar determination in founders – while wrestling is an individual sport, wrestlers help each other become a very strong team, a principle widely applicable to startups. Ken seeks founders with extreme domain experience for the problem they want to solve, and those who are introspective enough to identify the types of people they need to surround themselves with to become successful.
One such founder was Idan Tendler at Bridgecrew, who found his perfect product-market fit in cloud security long after tweaking the original thesis. Idan and his team tested, measured, and kept pivoting their strategy until they got it right. Ken, having beared wtiness to the amazing brainstorming by the team, loves emulating the formula with other companies.
“I always like seeing the good people win. Unfortunately, in security, that’s hard to do. The bad people only need to break into an enterprise in one area, but we need to protect the entire surface area. I’m so excited when I see entrepreneurs who also want to make enterprises more secure. It’s the right thing to do.”
To Ken, success is multilateral: on the one hand, it’s about making something that lasts and he’s passionate about longevity for Sorenson, for his portfolio companies, and for his relationships with people. On the other hand, Ken is extremely competitive. He’s a man who hates to lose even more than he loves to win, and in the end, his favorite thing about working with portfolio companies is the ability to make win/win contacts, whether that be from customers, channel partners, or strategic partners.
The thing I like most about Ken is that he doesn’t shy away from digging in to help out in the formative stages. As we were wrestling to figure out our go-to-market, Ken worked with us to develop our grassroots, self-service strategy. This turned out to be an absolute game changer.”
Idan Tender, Co-Founder and CEO
I’ve known Ken Elefant for nearly 20 years. Based on our relationship and Sorenson’s security and enterprise software expertise, I knew I wanted to work with them as an investor. Even before the Openpath concept was fully formed, Rob Rueckert, Ken Elefant, and the Sorenson team helped us define our focus and initial opportunity.”
James Segil, Co-Founder and President
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Portfolio News
The portfolio companies listed above represent a subset of all investments made by Sorenson. It should not be assumed that future portfolio investments will be profitable or equal to the success of the companies in this list. A complete list of Sorenson investments is available upon request.
