Sara Deshpande

Sara Deshpande is a General Partner at Maven Ventures, a seed stage venture firm investing in tech companies addressing emerging consumer behavior and trends with $200 million AUM across five funds. At Maven, Sara and the team identify and back bold founders with a vision worth fighting for and help them unlock their potential to change the world, building iconic brands like Zoom and Cruise. Sara specializes in consumer software including digital health and personalized medicine, consumer applications of AI, consumer climate, family tech, and other high-growth consumer sectors. At Maven, Sara has led pioneering investments at the Seed stage in companies including Daybreak Health, Hello Heart, Carrot Fertility, Nest Genomics, and Wildtype. Sara has been at Maven for a decade since joining as the first employee. She previously worked with startups around the globe, including at The Idea Village in New Orleans, helping founders articulate and achieve a bold vision against all odds. She is Lecturer in Management at the Stanford GSB where she teaches an MBA elective course on startups and is a regular contributor to Forbes on Venture Capital. Earlier in her career, Sara was a management consultant in the Healthcare Strategy practice at Deloitte. Sara graduated from Xavier University with a B.S. in Finance and received her M.B.A. from Stanford.