Val Vaden joined Cota in 2025 as a Venture Partner.

Val brings four decades of enterprise technology company experience as a management consultant, software executive, and venture and private equity investor. Val co-founded Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage venture investing, and Vector Capital, a private equity and credit investment firm focused on technology and technology-enabled businesses. As a venture capital and private equity investor, Val has been involved in many successful investments and M&A transactions at these firms.

Val began his career as a consultant at Bain and Company and then became an investor at The Cypress Fund and Feibusch & Co., a privately held investment holding company.

Val has an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an A.B. with distinction and honors in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Val is married, is the father of 5 and stepfather to 4, and is keen on functional medicine and fly-fishing (including a stint as an Orvis-endorsed guide).