Jessica Leão is a Partner at Decibel, an early-stage venture capital firm where she invests in founders building AI-native infrastructure software companies including developer tools, data engineering, and cybersecurity. She focuses on the earliest stages of company building and enables founders to find product-market fit.

Jessica grew up in Salvador, Brazil, and moved to the U.S. to attend Yale University where she earned her BA with Distinction in American Studies & Technology. She later earned her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and worked as a Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir Technologies on the R2D2 team.

Jessica founded The 21 Fund in 2020, a $2M seed fund investing in Stanford GSB startups. Her early investment portfolio includes MosaicML, which was acquired by Databricks for $1.3 billion, and she previously served as Principal at Maverick Ventures and Managing Partner at Dorm Room Fund.

Jessica joined Decibel as Partner in October 2023 after leading early investments in open source LLMs and AI-enabled applications at Maverick Ventures. She specializes in helping technical founders at pre-seed and seed stages recruit talent, find early adopters, and overcome daily startup challenges.

Jessica's investment in MosaicML, a pioneer in Generative AI, resulted in a $1.3 billion acquisition by Databricks. She brings a unique perspective from her operator experience at Palantir working on AI-based products and remains passionate about enabling underestimated founders building the next wave of AI engineering tools.