Mark Fernandes

Managing Director, Sierra Ventures

Mark Fernandes is a Managing Director at Sierra Ventures and focuses on software investments in the consumer internet and enterprise areas. His investments include Frontbridge Technologies (acquired by Microsoft), Sourcefire (NASD: FIRE) and Opalis Software (acquired by Microsoft). He was also a board observer at Net6 (acquired by Citrix Systems) and Permeo (acquired by Blue Coat Systems). He serves on the boards of Ooyala, Spotzer Media, DynamicOps and ThisMoment. Mark started his career in engineering at Seagate Technology and was then a product manager at Cisco Systems. After business school, Mark was an equity research analyst covering software companies, first at Robertson Stephens and then as a Director at Merrill Lynch. He joined Sierra Ventures in 2002. Mark has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a MBA from Harvard.

Articles by Mark Fernandes

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13

We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...

Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...

How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Learn the 7 steps to product-led growth (PLG) to build a product that sells itself. Drive activation, boost conversions, and scale efficiently with Wes Bush from ProductLed....

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...