Marathon

Marathon is an investment firm that partners with obsessed founders in technology. @gokulr @mbgilroy @alexgorgoni @ChaseAPackard @GraceGEverett

[Michael B. Gilroy @MBGilroy]

The fastest growing business in our portfolio is looking for a new VP Finance. Ideal candidate has business model range and capital markets experience. I know many of you have the latter. Growth stage, ~$100M raised.

[Michael B. Gilroy @MBGilroy]

Labs enable hackers to infiltrate big banks, @straikerai catches it and helps to stop the attack. This story will repeat itself over and over. Excellent distillation of what's happening behind the scenes @coryweinberg (and congrats!)

https://t.co/27QfErow5u

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Fastest company ever to $1b annualized revenue

Nope it’s not Higgsfield or Cursor or Cognition.

Met a data company yesterday that did 0 revenue in November 2025 and 80m “in month revenue” in September 2026. They will hit $1b annualized from 11 months of being started. They are still under the radar so I can’t share who they are. Hopefully soon, with their permission.

I don’t make the rules.

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Promoted employee posts

(This post was written for LinkedIn, but the same logic applies to customer / employee posts on X. A domain buying company promoted my positive post about them for several months, and I believe it was hugely ROI positive for them)

Serval does an excellent job of getting every employee to post on LinkedIn about their Serval experience, and then promoting those posts.

These promoted posts are the best ads since they are diverse, authentic and credible in a way no brand campaign can be. Each post reaches a different network, speaks in a different voice, and carries the implicit endorsement of someone who chose to stake their own reputation on the company.

It also compounds. Every post is a recruiting pitch, a customer reference, and a culture signal at once. Prospects see a team that believes in the product. Candidates see people who are proud of where they work. Competitors see momentum.

And paid promotion flips the usual math. Instead of spending to make a generic message feel human, Serval spends to amplify messages that are already human. The creative costs nothing, and it's the best creative they have.

The lesson for founders: your employees are your most underused distribution channel. Make it easy and safe for them to share their story, then put money behind the ones that land.

[Michael B. Gilroy @MBGilroy]

@wafer_ai also being followed by lots of new paying customers over the last 90 days

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

All the focus on top line growth ignores burn / efficiency.

There are actually two paths, one is super fast growing but highly inefficient / high burn. The other is fast growing but efficient.

If you're in a large market and have grown revenues from 5 to 15M this year, or 3M => 12M, burning sub-5M (burn ratio of 0.5) and you can't raise, please message me.

We at @MarathonMP absolutely love companies that compound efficiently for years.

[Marathon @MarathonMP]

@Mazzeo @alexklein0x We appreciate you partner 💪🏽

[steve @gpusteve]

i'm sad to announce that our recent fundraising round did not go according to plan...

we initially planned to raise $18m.

we didn't end up getting that number.

we ended up raising a $40m series a instead.

co-led by @MarathonMP and @chemistry, with participation from @Wing_VC, @AMD Ventures, @outsetcap, @fiftyyears, and @ycombinator, and our existing investors doubling down on @wafer_ai. we are also joined by an incredible list of angels, including @JeffDean (CEO, @DiscoLoopAI), @rauchg (CEO, @vercel), @andyfang (CTO, @DoorDash), @kvogt (CEO, Bot), @akothari (COO, @NotionHQ), @eastdakota (CEO, @Cloudflare), @deepgramscott (CEO, @DeepgramAI), and more.

back to the kernel mines

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Great list. We @MarathonMP have a strong and value-added presence in NYC thanks to my partners @AlexGorgoni and @ChaseAPackard, who I believe are two of the best and most thoughtful investors in tech today.

In Marathon fund 1, 50% of portfolio companies are HQed in NYC.

We also have a great space for founders to work out of. Two of our companies were incubated in the space.

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Thank you Ramesh for your friendship and partnership over the years. Excited to see the @MarathonMP hat in the wild, and hope to see it become an essential piece of tech swag that every entrepreneur and leader proudly sports to showcase their commitment to the marathon of company building!

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Our swag. Our brand. @MarathonMP

New colors coming soon!

[Niural AI @niuralHQ]

Guess we're both fans of making borders matter a little less @Revolut.
Global money 🤝 Global payroll.

Over to you, @NStoronsky 👀

h/t, @ChaseAPackard 🫡

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

Great collab between @MarathonMP and our friends at @GVteam on the consumer AI builder dinner.

Most participants want to do it again, which is a good signal :)

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

SWAG

At @MarathonMP, our swag game is focused on our hats. While we have great branded shirts, backpacks, etc, it’s the hats that founders, LPs and others love (and love to wear). A founder’s termsheet closing condition was that they get one hat in every color :)

The hat simply reads “Marathon”. The word is incredibly malleable and everyone can affix their own meaning to it (for example, the Nike logo on the side, coupled with Marathon, can lead the observer to the conclusion that the wearer is a runner, and in fact that’s the most common “stop in the street” reaction our hats get :))

Of course, the reason we chose Marathon as our name is that it epitomizes the endurance and grit needed to build legendary companies. And we are here as the founder’s supporter and helper through the company building marathon.

But there’s no reason to not have fun along the way, and swag is a great way to showcase the philosophy.

They also come in 6 different colors (more coming soon!) so you can build your own collection, one for each day of the week.

We hope to get one to you when we meet you in person!

[Chase Packard @ChaseAPackard]

My @MarathonMP partner-in-crime @MBGilroy does a fantastic job outlining our philosophy in this interview. The work across talent, partnerships, GTM, etc. starts before we invest, so founders see firsthand what they’ll get with Marathon as a partner.

Very fortunate to learn from Michael every day (going on 6 years now!), alongside my other talented partners @gokulr @AlexGorgoni.

The Marathon Continues!

[David Weisburd 🚀 @DWeisburd]

Imagine a founder who feels zero loyalty, zero reciprocity, a true psychopath. Even that founder would still give you the allocation nine times out of ten.

That is how predictable value creation actually is. It has nothing to do with being liked.

@MBGilroy co-founder of Marathon Management Partners, on why the best founders reward the investors who showed up before there was anything to invest in.

"A non-psychopath is gonna say yes ten out of ten times," he told me. "Very few people do it. We call it the anti Ozempic way of life. It's just good old fashioned hard work and discipline getting you in the room and keeping you in the room and winning that business."

Platforms sell founders a dream of endless mindshare and access. What actually wins allocation is boring: showing up for the pre-portfolio work, months before there is a round, with no guarantee you get in. The best predictor of future value add is value already added. Everything else is a pitch.

Discipline is not glamorous. It is just the only thing that compounds.

[David Weisburd 🚀 @DWeisburd]

70% gross margin. 10% gross margin. Same sector, same growth rate, completely different business.

Most investors still value companies off a revenue multiple. That habit quietly breaks the moment you leave classic SaaS.

@MBGilroy , co-founder of Marathon Management Partners, $400 million across software and fintech.

"In fintech, we only use gross profit multiples, because I can be looking at a business that's 70% gross profit or 10%," he told me. "It doesn't mean the 10% gross profit business is any worse, but it does mean they're different. So taking a revenue multiple there makes zero sense."

Revenue multiples work when gross margin is roughly constant across a sector, the whole premise behind classic SaaS comps. Fintech blew that assumption up years ago, with margins ranging from negative to 80% depending on the model. Gilroy now applies the same lens to AI software, where the spread is just as wide and most people are still pricing it off top line revenue.

The multiple you are using might be pricing the wrong company entirely.

[David Weisburd 🚀 @DWeisburd]

The biggest mistake in venture is not missing the winner. It is backing the company that finishes second.

You can be right about the trend and right about the market size and still lose, because you underwrote the wrong logo.

@MBGilroy , co-founder of Marathon Management Partners, told me this is the single most expensive error he sees.

"The biggest mistake you can make in our business is backing the number two, three or four business in any given market that ends up working," he said. "Not only do you lose money, but it's the opportunity cost of putting a lot more money into a business that's gonna make money for ourselves and for our investors."

Everyone underwrites the trend. Almost nobody admits that picking the category winner is a separate skill, and getting the first part right does nothing to protect you from getting the second part wrong. Capital behind the number three player is capital that will never touch the company that actually returns the fund.

Being early and being right are not the same thing.

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

My partner @MBGilroy's interview perfectly captures our philosophy at @MarathonMP.

One of our core tenets is to prove to founders BEFORE we invest that we will be one of your best SDRs (i.e. help connect you with potential customers) and also one of your best recruiters (i.e. help connect you with potential talent).

[David Weisburd 🚀 @DWeisburd]

Watch full episode: https://t.co/8jx7nt9tXX