Following an eight-year tenure as the first female general partner at Benchmark, Sarah Tavel has announced on X that she will be taking on a more limited role within the esteemed venture firm.

In her new capacity as a venture partner, Tavel will maintain her investment activities and continue to serve on the boards of existing companies, while also dedicating more time to exploring “AI tools at the edge” and contemplating the trajectory of AI, as outlined in her statement.

Tavel initially joined Benchmark in 2017, bringing with her a wealth of experience from her previous roles, including a one-and-a-half-year stint as a partner at Greylock and a three-year tenure as a product manager at Pinterest. Prior to Pinterest, Tavel worked as an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where she played a key role in sourcing investments in Pinterest and GitHub.

Since its inception in 1995, Benchmark has intentionally maintained a compact team of six or fewer general partners. Notably, the firm operates as an equal partnership, distinguishing itself from other VC firms where senior partners typically receive a larger share of management fees and profits, instead opting for an equal division of fees and returns among all general partners.

Throughout her tenure as a general partner at Benchmark, Tavel has invested in a range of notable companies, including the campsite marketplace Hipcamp, the cryptocurrency intelligence startup Chainalysis, and the beauty platform Supergreat, which was acquired by Whatnot in 2023. Her investment portfolio also includes the photo-sharing app Paparazzi, which ceased operations two years ago, as well as the AI sales platform 11X, which was recently covered by TechCrunch in an article.