Meet Danel Dayan, a principal in our Menlo Park office who focuses on early and growth-stage investments in enterprise software, from AI, cloud infrastructure, security and beyond. We chatted with Danel for our latest #TeamTuesdays, here’s what’s on his mind:
🖊️ Everyone’s talking about AI these days. What’s an AI opportunity that has you really excited?
🔹 I’m excited about AI’s potential in professional services, given my background in accounting. Similar to legal workflows, accounting firms and CPAs can greatly benefit from AI, particularly in tasks like auditing, reconciliation and managing AP/AR schedules.
In infrastructure, AI's rapid advancements are striking, especially in security workflows like penetration testing. AI could shift pen testing from an expensive, periodic activity to a continuous process, unlocking new value. I'm also interested in how AI integrates memory into agents and reshapes interactions between computers, agents and the web.
🖊️ We know you’re a big fan of adventure sports. If you could take a founder on an expedition, where would you go?
🔹 Climbing via ferrata in the Italian Dolomites! It’s a great mix of nature, adrenaline and activity, maybe with a cold beer waiting at the end—a perfect way to connect with a founder.
🖊️ What’s the best advice you’ve received in your career?
🔹 Think in decades, act in days. Careers are defined by balancing urgency and long-term decisions. This means doing the hard stuff now because you believe it will have an outsized impact later. I think about this in everything I do and take no shortcuts.
🖊️ If you weren’t in venture capital, which other career path would you pursue?
🔹 If I had to choose two professions, I’d be either an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine or a chef. I love fixing things and am fascinated by how the body works, especially muscles and the skeletal system. Cooking, like surgery, requires precision and creativity, balancing science with a human touch that elevates a dish. This mix of science, precision and intuition is what captivates me.
🖊️ What piece of conventional wisdom in the VC industry do you disagree with, and why?
🔹 Entry prices don’t matter as much as finding investments that combine good companies with good deals. Though this ideal combination can be hard to spot due to competition, market conditions or the founding team, it's essential to have a clear understanding of your investment criteria and how you evaluate each opportunity.
🖊️ What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned through failure?
🔹 It usually hurts more to fail than to succeed because failure is often self-inflicted. To me, failure implies a lack of preparation, focus, urgency or action. It's not the failure itself that's painful, but the inputs (or lack thereof) that led to that outcome. Success is about all the little things that go into minimizing the chances and probability of failure.
