Gigascale Capital Welcomes John Lilly as Advising Partner

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gigascale Capital, a venture firm founded by Mike Schroepfer that backs early-stage companies rebuilding the physical economy with solutions that, at scale, are cheaper, more productive, and less polluting, today announced that John Lilly has joined the firm as an Advising Partner. A multi-time founder and former CEO of Mozilla, Lilly spent 12 years as a General Partner at Greylock, and brings decades of experience across the company-building journey as a founder, operator, board member, and investor.

Lilly's track record covers some of the most consequential companies of the last two decades. At Greylock, he led investments in Instagram, Dropbox, Figma, Tumblr, and Quip. He currently sits on the boards of directors of Figma, Duolingo, and Nuro. Before Greylock, he served as CEO of Mozilla, where he led the Firefox organization to more than 450 million users worldwide. He also co-founded Reactivity, an enterprise security company acquired by Cisco Systems.

“The companies we back are navigating a complex journey from breakthrough to scale. Their progress depends on having the right people in their corner,” said Mike Schroepfer, Founding Partner of Gigascale Capital. “John has built for scale from every angle—as a founder, operator, and investor. His network spans the full technology ecosystem. His instincts are exactly what our founders need when it matters most.”

“Some of the most important company building over the next decade will happen at the intersection of deep tech, energy, and the physical economy. The firms that show up with real operational depth are going to shape it,” said John Lilly. “Gigascale is building that kind of firm by helping companies scale and being early where it matters.”

Gigascale plays an active role in the companies it backs, helping founders navigate the decisions that determine whether a promising technology becomes a scaled business: how to architect the organization so it can sustain growth, how to sequence technical risk so the hardest bets get retired early, how to build a narrative that wins enterprise customers, and how to find and close the hires that change the trajectory of a company. That hands-on approach extends across the portfolio.

“Gigascale has been instrumental across our most significant initiatives,” said Brad Hartwig, Co-Founder of Gigascale portfolio company Arbor. “They operate as true partners—they never ask for anything that creates work beyond what we'd already be doing to build this company, and yet the team has embedded itself so deeply in ours that almost nothing goes out the door without a gut-check from someone at Gigascale. That is how much value we see in their perspective, and how deeply we trust this team.”

About Gigascale Capital

Gigascale Capital backs early-stage companies rebuilding the physical economy with solutions that, at scale, are cheaper, more productive, and less polluting. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, the firm has invested in over 25 companies. Some decarbonize directly. Others create the enabling layers that make hardware and infrastructure faster and cheaper to build. In both cases, climate impact follows from better-performing systems.