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Prakash Janakiraman Joins The House Fund as Visiting Partner
Janakiraman, a Berkeley alumnus, brings extensive experience in building large-scale platforms and engineering organizations.
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Staff Reporter - Tue, 16, Jun 2026
- 05:31 EDT
- 26
Prakash Janakiraman / Prakash Janakiraman via LinkedIn
California-based venture firm The House Fund has appointed veteran Indian-origin technology leader Prakash Janakiraman as visiting partner and head of its AI Accelerator, the firm's founder announced June 15.
The House Fund is a Berkeley-focused pre-seed and early-stage venture capital firm that invests in startups founded by UC Berkeley students, faculty, alumni and affiliates. Founded in 2016, it combines funding, mentorship and access to Berkeley's entrepreneurial network to help founders scale their businesses.
Janakiraman, a Berkeley alumnus, brings extensive experience in building large-scale platforms and engineering organizations.
He is best known as co-founder and former chief architect of Nextdoor, where he played a pivotal role in scaling the company from a single community to more than 300,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries, reaching more than half of all U.S. households.
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As founding CTO, he shaped the company's engineering culture, technical architecture and product vision from inception through its IPO.
Before joining Nextdoor, Janakiraman held key leadership roles at Google, where he led core infrastructure and product teams for Google Maps.
When I was a student founder, Prakash Janakiraman was one of the people I called for advice. Years later, he became one of the first LPs to believe in The House Fund.
— Jeremy Fiance (@jfiance) June 15, 2026
Today, he's officially joining @thehousefund as Visiting Partner and Head of our AI Accelerator.
This one is… pic.twitter.com/USVhwPf7Ab
Expressing excitement over the new appointee, Jeremy Fiance, founder of The House Fund, said on X, "When I was a student founder, Prakash Janakiraman was one of the people I called for advice. Years later, he became one of the first LPs to believe in The House Fund."
He continued, "Today, he's officially joining The House Fund as visiting partner and head of our AI Accelerator. This one is special."
Janakiraman holds degrees in computer science and sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
The company's leadership believes that Janakiraman's addition strengthens its focus on supporting bold AI and deep-tech startups emerging from Berkeley.
Talking about his appointment, Janakiraman said, "Thank you to Jeremy Fiance, David Bloom and the entire team for this amazing opportunity. Excited to get started with the Summer '26 cohort of THF's AI Accelerator."
He also said, "Back to doing what I enjoy most: collaborating with extraordinary teams to build world-class products and companies."
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