Banyan's Founder & Solo GP Sam Awrabi was the first sales hire in the two billion dollar experiment & model management market & has advised over 15 AI infrastructure companies in the past 8 years.

Founders & CEOs in the AI sector bring Sam in as a senior advisor at day zero to help them scale, and this unique vantage point in the fast-moving AI landscape provides him with unprecedented access to exceptional early-stage investment opportunities.

Sam joined MissingLink.ai after its acquisition by Samsung in the newly formed Experiment Tracking Market. When Sam joined MissingLink, the entire market had low double-digit paying customers; today, there are over 4,000.

Following his success at MissingLink, Sam took on the role of the first revenue hire at Comet ML.

There, he played a key role in scaling the company from seed to Series B, helping close deals with over 150 customers, including tech giants like Uber, Cisco, Etsy, and Netflix.

Sam gained invaluable insights into how enterprises buy or build AI infrastructure by witnessing how a new category of AI infrastructure is created and then transitions from early adopters to late adopters.

After his tenure at Comet.ml, Sam founded Awrabi Consulting. Through his consulting, he advised leading AI startups such as Deci, ClearML, Layer, Datature, Deepnote, Activeloop, Segmind, Nomic, and Ori, among others.

54% of his advising clients reached Series A funding, and 18% reached Series B. During this period, Sam also worked in four new AI Infrastructure markets, notably was Deci.ai in the newly formed model optimization space which was acquired by NVIDIA.

Sam founded Banyan Ventures to further amplify his access & ability of backing crucial AI companies.

His early investments through Banyan have shown promising trajectories, with several portfolio companies on track to become valued at over $1 billion.