Vijay Karunamurthy
About Vijay Karunamurthy
Vijay Karunamurthy is based in San Francisco, California. Crunchbase lists him as Head of Engineering and VP Engineering at Scale AI, a role that began in March 2022. His own speaker bios describe an engineering career that started at YouTube. He was an early employee there and became Head of Search and Discovery after the Google acquisition. He later worked as a Director of Engineering and Machine Learning at Apple and Google. Bloomberg reported that Apple hired him as an engineering director in April 2017.
He has co-founded two companies. He was a co-founder of AVOS Systems, the company led by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. He was also co-founder and CEO of Nom Labs (Nom) from 2014 to 2017. Bloomberg described Nom as a food-focused app and reported that it had closed by 2017.
At Scale AI he moved from Head of Engineering to Field Chief Technology Officer. In that role he worked with model providers, governments and large enterprises on generative AI and evaluation. He testified before the US House Financial Services Committee in July 2024 on AI in financial services and housing. His X profile now says he is building Mirendil and lists Khosla Ventures, Scale AI, Apple and Google as previous roles. He holds a BA in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford and an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas.
Crunchbase records 4 investments in 4 portfolio companies. None are marked as led by him, and it lists 1 exit, LearnSprout. His earliest recorded deals are an angel round in Imgix and a 2013 seed round in LearnSprout. His more recent recorded deals are the Lutra AI seed round in December 2023 and a LaserData seed round that Crunchbase dates to April 2026.
He is also listed as a scout for Sequoia Capital. NFX Signal shows the scout role as running from 2022 and lists an Entrepreneur in Residence position at Khosla Ventures. NFX Signal shows 4 investments on record for him, matching Crunchbase. The deal details are behind a sign-in, so this page does not list amounts or co-investors beyond what Crunchbase shows publicly.
Lutra AI is the clearest AI investment on public record. Crunchbase shows him in its seed round on December 7, 2023, alongside 14 investors in total, including Andrej Karpathy. He has also publicly written on LinkedIn that he invested in Convoke, which is building AI-first infrastructure for drug discovery and development. The post does not give the date or amount.
His public commentary shows the themes he follows. In interviews and testimony he has discussed high-quality data for model training, evaluation and testing of AI systems, AI agents that work together, and voice and conversational interfaces. He has also described fine-tuned language models in finance, such as helping analysts write more efficient SQL queries.
NFX Signal ranks him among San Francisco Bay Area angels, scouts and solo capitalists for AI at the seed stage. That profile gives an investment range of $25K to $100K and a sweet spot of $50K. This comes from a third-party database, not from a statement by him, so confirm it with him directly.
He has not published a formal investment thesis that we found. His recorded deals include a drug discovery AI company, a seed-stage AI company and an earlier edtech data company, so his interests are not confined to one sector. His operating background is in machine learning, search and recommendation systems, large language models and enterprise AI deployment. Founders working on those problems are the closest match to his experience. His public geography is the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Lutra AI: AI company that raised a seed round on December 7, 2023, with Vijay Karunamurthy among 14 investors, per Crunchbase.
- LaserData: seed round recorded on Crunchbase, dated April 2026, where he is not listed as lead.
- Convoke: AI-first infrastructure for drug discovery and development. He says on LinkedIn that he invested, and no year is given.
- LearnSprout: education analytics company that raised a seed round in 2013. Crunchbase lists it as his exit.
- Imgix: Crunchbase records an angel round with him as investor, with no public year.
- crunchbase.com/person/vijay-karunamurthy
- crunchbase.com/funding_round/lutra-ai-seed--20385f12
- crunchbase.com/organization/avos
- signal.nfx.com/investors/vijay-karunamurthy
- x.com/vjkaruna?lang=en
- linkedin.com/in/vjkaruna
- asugsvsummit.com/speakers/vijay-karunamurthy
- sfelc.com/annual2022/topics/owning-your-story-in-machine-learning
Investing activity
Vijay Karunamurthy has made 4 investments according to Crunchbase across 4 portfolio companies, and has seen 1 exit and founded 2 companies.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Vijay Karunamurthy
Who is Vijay Karunamurthy?
He is a San Francisco-based engineer and angel investor. He was Head of Engineering and then Field CTO at Scale AI, and earlier worked at YouTube, Google and Apple. He co-founded AVOS Systems and Nom Labs.
What is Vijay Karunamurthy's check size?
NFX Signal lists an investment range of $25K to $100K with a sweet spot of $50K. He has not stated this publicly that we found, so treat it as an estimate.
Does Vijay Karunamurthy invest at seed stage?
Yes. NFX Signal ranks him among seed-stage AI investors in the San Francisco Bay Area. Crunchbase records seed rounds for Lutra AI, LaserData and LearnSprout.
How many investments has Vijay Karunamurthy made?
Crunchbase lists 4 investments in 4 portfolio companies, with no lead investments and 1 exit. NFX Signal also shows 4 investments on record.
Is Vijay Karunamurthy a Sequoia Capital scout?
Yes. NFX Signal and Startup Intros list him as a Scout at Sequoia Capital. He is not a Sequoia partner.
What is Vijay Karunamurthy working on now?
His X and LinkedIn profiles say he is building Mirendil. They list Khosla Ventures, Scale AI, Apple and Google as previous roles.
Is Vijay Karunamurthy an angel investor?
Yes. Vijay Karunamurthy invests personally as an angel. Crunchbase counts 4 investments and 1 exit.
Where is Vijay Karunamurthy based?
Vijay Karunamurthy is based in San Francisco, California, United States.
How can founders reach Vijay Karunamurthy?
Founders on Lounge can see Vijay Karunamurthy's contact details in AI Investor Contacts (paid plans), check for a warm introduction through members who worked with them under Warm Paths, and add Vijay Karunamurthy to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.