Before co-founding Firebolt Ventures in 2014, Cherian Mathew built search algorithms at Microsoft Bing using neural networks and random forest models, holding patents and ACM publications along the way, and he later established the Cherian and Vigny Mathew Faculty Fellowship for AI at IIT Kanpur, his alma mater. Five of his first ten investments reached valuations of $100 million or more, a track record that colleagues trace back to the same technical, pattern-recognition mindset he developed through his years at Microsoft, Draper Associates, and August Capital.