After Factory’s public spat with Khosla, Menlo proudly invests

在 Factory 与 Khosla 公开交火后，Menlo 骄傲入局

Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy and his team announced Monday in a blog post that the firm has invested in AI coding startup Factory. Menlo declined to comment on how much it invested but said the deal was part of Factory’s latest funding round announced last month at a $5 billion valuation. A source familiar with the deal told us the investment was significant to Menlo — not a token gesture — and that Menlo would have invested more had there been room on the cap table.

Menlo Ventures 合伙人 Matt Murphy 及其团队周一在博客中宣布，该公司已投资 AI 编程初创公司 Factory。Menlo 拒绝透露具体投资金额，但表示该交易是 Factory 上个月宣布的最新一轮融资的一部分，当时该公司的估值为 50 亿美元。一位知情人士告诉我们，这笔投资对 Menlo 而言意义重大，绝非象征性举动；如果股权结构表（cap table）还有空间，Menlo 本会投入更多资金。

Ordinarily, something like this wouldn’t necessarily be news; startups often extend previous rounds to add new investors. But last week, Factory co-founder and CEO Matan Grinberg was embroiled in a very public airing of dirty laundry when he alleged that he had fired investor Chris Degnan of firm RPT Partners from his role as board advisor. Grinberg said he feared Degnan may have shared confidential information with Factory’s biggest competitor, Cognition. The accusation followed Degnan’s move to Cognition as its chief revenue officer.

通常情况下，这类消息未必会成为新闻；初创公司经常通过延长融资轮次来引入新投资者。但上周，Factory 联合创始人兼首席执行官 Matan Grinberg 卷入了一场非常公开的“家丑外扬”事件，他声称自己解雇了 RPT Partners 公司的投资者 Chris Degnan，并撤销了其董事会顾问的职务。Grinberg 表示，他担心 Degnan 可能向 Factory 的最大竞争对手 Cognition 泄露了机密信息。此前，Degnan 刚刚跳槽至 Cognition 担任首席营收官。

A who’s who of the tech industry came out of the woodwork either to support Degnan and condemn Factory, or vice versa, but none was more surprising than Vinod Khosla. Khosla’s firm is an investor in both Factory and Cognition. But that didn’t stop the venerable VC from calling Factory a desperate “struggling second tier competitor,” and accusing Grinberg of lying about firing Degnan and impugning his character. Degnan disputed Grinberg’s story, saying he resigned and that he’d rebuffed a competing job offer from Grinberg.

科技界的各路大咖纷纷现身，要么支持 Degnan 并谴责 Factory，要么反之。但最令人惊讶的莫过于 Vinod Khosla。Khosla 的公司同时投资了 Factory 和 Cognition。但这并没有阻止这位资深风投人公开称 Factory 是一家绝望的“苦苦挣扎的二流竞争对手”，并指责 Grinberg 在解雇 Degnan 一事上撒谎，还抨击了他的个人品格。Degnan 则反驳了 Grinberg 的说法，称自己是主动辞职，并拒绝了 Grinberg 提供的竞争性工作邀请。

So Menlo’s full-throated endorsement of Factory, which praised its founders, its tech, and its relationship with its customers, is more than a feather in Factory’s cap. It’s a statement that Factory is not in the state that Khosla implied it was. Murphy famously bet his firm on Anthropic back when it appeared to be an also-ran to OpenAI and has been on a hot streak ever since, landing deals with Lovable and Legora, for instance. So now some VCs are calling Factory “the next Anthropic.“

因此，Menlo 对 Factory 的全力支持——赞扬了其创始人、技术以及与客户的关系——不仅仅是为 Factory 增光添彩，更是一种声明：Factory 并非像 Khosla 所暗示的那样处于困境。Murphy 曾因在 Anthropic 看起来还不如 OpenAI 时就押注该公司而闻名，此后他一直保持着极高的投资成功率，例如还拿下了 Lovable 和 Legora 的交易。因此，现在一些风投人开始将 Factory 称为“下一个 Anthropic”。

Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire, also a Factory backer who came out on X in support of Grinberg last week, appears thrilled with Menlo’s endorsement, saying the firm is “on a tear.” Notably, Menlo is not an investor in competitor Cognition.

红杉资本的 Shaun Maguire 也是 Factory 的支持者，他上周在 X 上公开支持 Grinberg。他似乎对 Menlo 的背书感到非常兴奋，称该公司目前“势不可挡”。值得注意的是，Menlo 并非竞争对手 Cognition 的投资者。