Bobby Yazdani is Founder and Managing Partner of Cota Capital, a San Francisco-based firm investing in private and public U.S.-based modern enterprise technology companies. Bobby works full time on the development and support of entrepreneurs through Cota Capital and is well-known for his active, impactful approach in building and engaging with portfolio companies. Launched in 2015, the firm has over $1 billion in assets under management, is SEC-registered, and focuses its investments in the areas of Modern Infrastructure, Enterprise Automation, FinTech, and HealthTech.
Before forming Cota Capital, Bobby spent over 20 years investing in technology companies both individually and through his family office, Signatures Capital, which he founded in 2006. Through his family office and Cota Capital, Bobby has invested in over 200 private companies. Drawing from nearly three decades of entrepreneurial experience in Silicon Valley, Bobby mentors, advances and empowers entrepreneurs on their journey to build great companies. In 2014, Bobby was ranked #1 out of 2000 angel investors for successful follow-on funding by CB Insights. Bobby made his first investment in 1989 in medical technology company Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI), where, in addition to providing capital, he wrote software to enhance the accuracy of the company’s early neonatal pulse oximeters.
Bobby founded Saba Software (“Saba”) in 1997, taking the company public in 2000. Saba was the pioneer of Learning Management and Talent Management Solutions, serving over 30 million people from 2,200 customers across 195 countries and in 37 languages worldwide. Saba was acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSOD) in 2020. At Saba, Bobby served as CEO from 1997 to 2002 and from 2003 to 2013. Prior to Saba, Bobby worked in various R&D roles at Oracle Corporation from 1988 to 1997.
Since making his first investment in Masimo Corporation (NASDAQ: MASI) in 1989, Bobby has successfully mentored entrepreneurs and invested in more than 200 companies, including: Aardvark (acquired by Google), AddThis (acquired by Oracle), Addepar, Atheer Labs, Baarzo (acquired by Google), Berkeley Lights (NASDAQ: BLI), Bina Technologies (acquired by Roche), Bioniz, Blueprint Genetics (acquired by Quest Diagnostics), Bonobos (acquired by Walmart), Bossa Nova, Capella Space, CellFE, Checkr, Clear Labs, CleverSense (acquired by Google), Cloudleaf, CloudLending (acquired by Q2 Holdings), Collective Health, Compliance.ai (acquired by Archer), Correlia Biosystems, Dropbox (NASDAQ: DBX), ESPER, Flat, Fortify, FundersClub, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Greensmith Energy (acquired by Wartsila (HEL: WRT1V)), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll), InstaEdu (acquired by Chegg), Klout (acquired by Lithium Technologies), Mission Bio, Movandi, NextBio (acquired by Illumina), OpenGov (acquired by Cox Enterprises), PassBan (acquired by EMC/RSA), Probius DX, Purigen Biosystems, QU, Qwiki (acquired by Yahoo!), RecVue, Rhombus Systems, Rollbar, Roostify, Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), Smartfrog Canary Group, SoundHound, SweetGreen (NASDAQ: SG), ThinkBig Analytics (acquired by Teradata), Truebill (acquired by Rocket Companies), Tubi (acquired by Fox Corp), Uber (NYSE: UBER), Vave, Webs.com (acquired by VistaPrint), Zymergen (NASDAQ: ZY), and more.
Bobby has endowed the American Legacy Fund in partnership with U.S. Soccer, the Berkeley Changemaker Endowment and the Signatures Innovation Fellowship at University of California, Berkeley; the Maryam Mirzakhani Endowed Professorship at Mathematical Sciences Research Institute; and the Yazdani Family Endowed Scholarship, the Parivash Yazdani Research Fund, and the Maker Space at University of Southern California. Bobby serves on the President’s Leadership Council at University of Southern California.
Born in Tehran, Iran, Bobby completed high school in England and received a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.