RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Diya TV) — At Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International Summit in Riyadh, Aarthi Ramamurthy announced the launch of her new venture capital firm, Schema Ventures, debuting with a $20 million fund focused on early-stage investments. As a solo general partner (GP), Ramamurthy brings a unique perspective, having built her career from humble beginnings in India to leadership roles at major tech firms including Meta, Netflix, and Microsoft.
Schema Ventures is Ramamurthy’s next chapter following the success of The Good Time Show, the online talk show she co-hosts with her husband, Sriram Krishnan, a former Andreessen Horowitz general partner and current senior AI policy advisor at the White House. Originally launched in 2020 during the pandemic, the show quickly gained attention for its casual, candid interviews with influential tech figures.
Speaking on stage at the Riyadh summit, Ramamurthy emphasized that despite the saturation of VC firms, there remains a significant funding gap for underrepresented or unconventional founders. “If you ask a VC firm or any venture capitalist, they’ll be like: ‘Oh, there are too many funds, lots of VC firms out there,’” she said. “But if you ask founders, there’s still such a big gap.”
Schema Ventures aims to bridge that gap by investing in developers building tools and infrastructure software, startups often overlooked in favor of flashier consumer tech. Early investments include Cosmic Robotics, a company building robotics for solar panel maintenance; Confido Health, which improves back-office operations in healthcare; and Powerhouse, a startup streamlining workflows for law firms.
Ramamurthy’s journey informs her approach. “I come from India, a small town, recruited straight out of college,” she told Fortune. “When I came to the U.S., I’d never traveled outside of India. I didn’t have any network, no connections, no access, and sort of figured it out as I went.”
Now based in San Francisco for over a decade, Ramamurthy has evolved from outsider to insider. Her fund is backed by an impressive list of limited partners (LPs), including high-profile Silicon Valley names like Marc Andreessen, Garry Tan, Elad Gil, Gokul Rajaram, Charlie Songhurst, Leo Polovets, and Lachy Groom. Y Combinator’s fund-of-funds also signed on as an LP.
Despite the star-studded support, Ramamurthy remains focused on what she sees as her core differentiator: empathy for builders solving real, personal problems. “I look at Schema as: How do you move away from the hype cycle and just truly find contrarian founders?” she said. “Not for the sake of being contrarian, but because they’re doing something that’s a personal problem for them.”
As a solo GP—still a rarity in the VC world—Ramamurthy is betting that her mix of technical expertise, founder empathy, and outsider perspective will help Schema stand out in a crowded field. Schema Ventures plans to write collaborative checks and build close relationships with the startups it backs, prioritizing support over scale.
For Ramamurthy, Schema is more than just a firm—it’s a reflection of her own story. “Schema is that culmination,” she said. “I’ve been through this journey, being this outsider coming into Silicon Valley… now I have all the access and connections—but it wasn’t easy to get in and break into that ecosystem.”
With Schema Ventures, she hopes to make that path a little easier for the next generation of founders.
