Elijah Sutanto invests across the full AI stack: software and hardware infrastructure, applications, and security. Prior to Lightspeed, he was at Coatue, where he invested in venture and growth-stage software and AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Harvey, OpenEvidence, Cursor, and Databricks.

Elijah came to venture from the other end of the company lifecycle. He started in Lazard’s Technology M&A group, working with Google, IBM, Intel, and VMware, and then joined Silver Lake to invest in private and public technology companies across PIPEs, structured equity, growth, and buyouts. 

These experiences left him with two realizations. The first: many of the most durable late-stage companies were still being driven by their founders: the people who built them had never left the helm. To understand where those companies were going, you had to understand who built them and why. The second was that at maturity, many defining chapters of a company’s story were already written. Venture, by contrast, could offer a seat – however small – while the story was still being shaped. 

One of the biggest lessons of his career is about honesty in underwriting. “Not every risk needs to be argued away with a mitigant,” he says. “Often the healthiest answer is to plainly admit a risk and lean into why you’re betting against it.” The bet he’ll often want to make against those risks is founder and team execution.

Elijah grew up in Singapore, the son of an Indonesian father and an Australian mother, with some less conventional interests along the way – he trained as a ballet and tap dancer – which may explain why he gravitates toward people who come at things from their own angle. Above all, founders building something novel.

Outside of work: anything to do with food. Cooking, grocery shopping, and mostly eating. Much of his network was built over meals with founders, operators, and other investors, many of whom he’d now call friends.