Rethinking series A in the age of mega funds

Rethinking series A in the age of mega funds

From StrictlyVC Download by Connie Loizos & Alex Gove

February 17, 2026 · 29 min

About this episode

Connie Loizos interviews Stacy Brown-Philpot about her venture firm Cherryrock Capital and the challenges of Series A funding in today's market.

This week on StrictlyVC Download, Connie Loizos talks with Stacy Brown-Philpot, founder and managing partner of Cherryrock Capital. After a decade at Google and leading TaskRabbit through its acquisition by IKEA, Brown-Philpot is now building a venture firm focused on Series A and Series B software companies led by under-invested founders—targeting what she sees as a critical gap in today’s venture ecosystem. In this conversation, Brown-Philpot explains why she launched Cherryrock in a difficult fundraising environment, how the firm evaluates product-market fit at scale, and why quality revenue matters more than headline ARR. She discusses how AI is reshaping enterprise software, how her board roles at HP and StockX inform the way she assesses companies, and why she believes strong businesses will continue to get funded despite a bifurcated venture market. It’s a grounded look at building durable companies—and backing them at a pivotal stage of growth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Connie Loizos

Guest: Stacy Brown-Philpot

Topics covered

  • venture capital
  • Series A funding
  • under-invested founders
  • AI in enterprise software
  • product-market fit
  • fundraising challenges

Keywords

  • venture capital
  • Series A
  • fundraising
  • AI
  • enterprise software
  • product-market fit
  • revenue
  • under-invested founders

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cherryrock Capital, Google, TaskRabbit, IKEA, HP, StockX

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