Guo’s Conviction Partners adds Mike Vernal as GP, raises $230M fund

When in mid-2022 Sarah Guo left Greylock to launch her own AI-focused fund, Conviction Partners, she indicated that she was tagging the word “Partners” to the firm’s name because she would eventually bring on other GPs.

Now, more than two years later, Guo is being joined by Mike Vernal, who was a partner at Sequoia before leaving the storied firm in 2023. Vernal joins as Conviction reveals it just closed a second fund with $230 million in capital commitments — more than double the haul of its $101 million debut fund.

It isn’t a surprise that Conviction has attracted a heavyweight investor. Over the last two years, Guo has built up Conviction’s brand, becoming among the better-known AI investors in Silicon Valley with stakes in companies like Mistral, Harvey, and Sierra. Guo also co-hosts a popular AI podcast, “No Priors,” with star investor Elad Gil.

Meanwhile, Vernal, who spent nearly seven years at Sequoia — and the previous eight years at Facebook as a VP of product and engineering — has himself led deals in numerous high-fliers, including Notion, Rippling, and Verkada, a security camera startup that’s reportedly raising funding at a $4.5 billion valuation.