Bessemer Venture Partners promotes Maha Malik to Vice President

As AI transforms industries, the most impactful bets are happening before the path is clear, but when conviction matters most. This requires our investors to carry a skillset of equal parts analytical rigor and optimism, a combination that we are proud to recognize in our newly promoted Vice President, Maha Aman Malik.

Since joining Bessemer two years ago, Maha has built a track record working at the earliest stages of software companies at the application layer, with a focus on LLM-powered workflows across vertical and consumer use cases. She is drawn to founders building for a new reality, one where AI fundamentally reshapes what is possible in software, often in ways that are not yet obvious to the broader market.

“Maha leads with empathy, conviction, and a unique instinct for people. She is deeply committed to early-stage founders and the ecosystems that help build great companies,” says Bessemer Partner Kent Bennett. “Founders gravitate toward her because she shows up with authenticity, curiosity, and a real desire to help. Above all, she is simply a great human, which makes her an exceptional partner during the invariably scary moments of early-stage company building.”

Before Bessemer, Maha spent nearly a decade at Bain & Company, where she became an Associate Partner working extensively in Bain’s Private Equity Practice. She advised more than 20 B2B SaaS deals and helped Fortune 500 companies navigate complex strategy and operational challenges. During her time at Bain, she took a leave of absence to pursue dual graduate degrees, an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School. In 2022, as LLMs burst onto the scene, she made the leap to venture, realizing she wanted to work more closely with the builders navigating this paradigm shift.

“My approach to investing is rooted in optimism,” shares Maha. “Early-stage work is about asking what compelled someone to start a company, something meaningful enough to risk so much of their life to pursue it. I look at dozens of companies every week, but founders are focused on building their one company. I’m always trying to understand what’s driving a founder to build, and what they see that the rest of us don’t yet. I try to believe in their conviction before poking holes.”

Maha has been involved in more than 25 investments spanning pre-seed through Series B at Bessemer. She currently serves as a board director or observer for more than 10 companies, working closely with founders at Miter, Brisk Teaching, Bevi, Rundoo, Axion, and Archy, among others. Beyond her portfolio work, Maha has co-authored the firm’s series on Vertical AI, contributed to the State of the Cloud 2024 and State of AI 2025 reports, and co-led our Built World AI roadmap. She is also a champion of early-stage ecosystems, supporting a range of communities, from hackathons to founder clubs.

Originally from Pakistan, Maha moved to the U.S. nearly two decades ago to attend Dartmouth College, a journey that still shapes how she sees the world and approaches her work with entrepreneurs. She champions teams from all backgrounds who build with purpose and conviction, recognizing that talent is widely distributed, even when opportunity is not, and feels a responsibility to bridge that gap. In her free time, she is an enthusiast of South Asian art, food, music, and fashion. She loves to travel, exploring new countries and cultures, and feels the happiest spending time at her family’s citrus farm.