JeanClaude Dorsainvil becomes XYZ’s first Principal
Five years ago, JeanClaude joined XYZ as an Analyst — before we had a website, before most people knew what we were building, and before many of the themes we care about today were obvious to anyone else. This month, he’s stepping into a new role as Principal.
Titles matter less than trust, and this promotion reflects something simple: JeanClaude has spent the last 5 years building instrumental relationships with ambitious founders.
From the beginning, JeanClaude gravitated toward the earliest moments of company formation — often before a pitch exists, sometimes before an idea does. Much of his work happens alongside founders at the stage where ideas are still being shaped, not judged. What that looks like in practice is less traditional underwriting and more co-exploration: doing diligence calls with founding teams, learning markets together, pressure-testing ideas in real time, and helping founders clarify what they’re actually building as companies take their first steps off the ground.
That orientation shows up everywhere in his work. JeanClaude spends much of his day exploring the esoteric themes that have always defined XYZ — the strange, non-obvious intersections where real leverage tends to emerge. Whether that’s spotting the opening for a new software-defined energy prime at the Pentagon, or demand among state and local governments for bleeding edge tech, he has a knack for meeting the right team going after the problem. He takes weird and whacky ideas seriously, not because novelty is the goal per se, but because founders trying to pull the future forward shouldn’t feel alone in that instinct. The best companies often start as ideas that don’t fit cleanly into existing categories.
To let one of these founders speak for themselves…
“JC was a true thought partner from day one, actually pressure testing whether we were going after the right idea,” Kimia Hamidi, Co-founder & CEO of NationGraph told us. “We spent a lot of time debating which market to target first, and he pushed me to get out of my head and into real conversations with customers. He then set up the meetings with sales managers and marketing leaders, connecting me directly with the feedback that ultimately shaped both the product and the business.”
JeanClaude has a deep bias toward proximity and execution— showing up wherever the work is happening. That has meant test-driving Forterra vehicles during diligence, working the the expo floor at conferences with Pryzm, standing side-by-side with the team as Apex launched their first satellite. It’s more than just showing up, it’s being the first blood donor for Goodlabs at their pilot site in SF, helping founders close real customers, and long nights mapping backward from ambitious milestones, toward concrete action and future funding.
Adam Warmoth, Co-founder & CEO of Chariot Defense shared with us, “JC was a partner for me from the earliest days and helped us communicate a clear and ambitious story. He’s been invaluable to our team, recruiting, and bringing in new capital partners.”
Much of that leverage is made possible by the networks JeanClaude has cultivated and contributed to over time. From his Bay Area roots at Berkeley, to leading investments and new communities through Dorm Room Fund, to the work he’s doing today with future founders in New York, these relationships have been built through proximity and shared work, not transactional networking. He continues to grow that surface area by convening exceptional operators early, often before they see themselves as builders or founders, and creating connective tissue that compounds into durable advantages for our portfolio companies.
As XYZ’s first Principal, JeanClaude is doubling down on the areas where we’re spending time and conviction today: companies pushing the edge of enterprise AI applications, founders refreshing critical infrastructure, new-age manufacturing tools that blend hardware and software, opportunities in state and local government infrastructure, and modern approaches to social services. These are hard problems, often unglamorous on the surface, but deeply consequential — exactly the kind of work that benefits from patient partners who are willing to engage early and stay close.
If you’re a founder deciding where to spend your time, this is what we hope comes through: XYZ shows up early, takes unconventional ideas seriously, and works alongside founders as they turn ambition into execution. JeanClaude embodies that approach, and this next chapter is a natural extension of the work he’s done over the last five years.
We’re excited to see him continue to build at XYZ — and even more excited about the founders he’ll partner with next.
— Ross & Chauncey
