Amplify Grows the Team: Welcoming Alex Rubalcava + Celebrating Connor Sundberg

To our broader Amplify family and tech community – we’re excited to share some exciting news heading into 2026, and a major milestone for the firm and our ongoing mission to be the earliest and strongest supporter of deeply technical and product-obsessed teams.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’re welcoming Alex Rubalcava as a GP at Amplify, and merging his firm, Stage Venture Partners, into the Amplify fold. We’re also delighted to formally announce Connor Sundberg’s promotion to Partner at Amplify, in recognition of his continued pivotal role with us.

Over more than a decade, we’ve come to know and respect Alex as an investor and operator. His LA-based firm, Stage, has backed over fifty teams across three funds at a similar entry point to where Amplify gets involved at Pre-Seed. We’ve co-invested several times and have often referred companies to one another as preferred collaborators. We’ve each also pursued and found differentiated value in certain sectors and themes over time, and challenged each other’s ideas along the way.

When we approached Alex about joining forces, though, it was not just for the potential fit as an investor and firm-builder. We had continuously seen his character in supporting his founders and the care he took to uplift others in our ecosystem. Alex shares our philosophy that every interaction matters and that we continue to earn the right to work with our founders and investors each day. Now, as a team, we’re proud to have one of the longest standing and category-leading platforms for supporting Pre-Seed enterprise and technical teams.

We’ve been lucky to see Connor’s career develop first-hand at Amplify, from joining as an Analyst over seven years ago, to becoming a critical early conduit for new Amplify founders and supporting every aspect of the firm. Many would say Connor has been the cartilage that has kept Amplify in motion these last several years and we are excited to have him continue and expand his career arc in venture here at Amplify.

People are everything in our business. Building the Amplify platform over the past fifteen years, we’ve been fortunate to work with some of the best. Our founders have trusted us with their early ideations and fledgling creations from the most critical first steps. Our LP’s have appointed us stewards of not only their capital, but their own ambitions and values. And our own team has always recognized our work as a privilege, one never to be taken for granted, and hard-fought for. Needless to say, we don’t take people decisions lightly!

We look forward to seeing and celebrating with many of you soon, and to deepening our work within our own LA ecosystem and as a pillar for the Pre-Seed community broadly. Alex also wanted to share his thoughts and his enthusiasm for the journey ahead in his own words below

After a decade of building Stage Venture Partners, including the last six years solo, today I’m thrilled to announce that I am merging my firm with Amplify. I’ve known the Amplify team – Paul Bricault, Connor Sundberg, Oded Noy, and Katie Dean – for more than a decade. Both Amplify and Stage VP operate in a similar manner: we invest as close to a company’s inception as possible, we lead rounds, and we prefer companies built around meaningful technology.

Over the last fifteen years, Amplify has built an enviable track record of success, backing companies like FloQast, SafeRide, Volley, Upwards, Tapcart, Honeybee, Rentspree, and many more. Stage VP has been fortunate to back breakout companies including Placer, Balto, GrayMatter Robotics, and Epsilon3. Combining our platforms establishes the new Amplify as the leading pre-seed firm in Southern California backing B2B startups.

It’s no small thing to close the door on a firm I’ve spent a meaningful part of my life building. I would only do so if I got the chance to work with great people, to continue backing great companies, and to do so with more impact than I could deliver on my own. Partnering with Amplify allows me to do all of those things.

Stage VP and Amplify have worked together on behalf of mutual investments for many years. I’ve seen the courage that Paul, Oded, and Connor bring to bear on behalf of companies, and the quality of the questions and guidance with which they advise founders. As we worked on the merger towards the end of 2025, I spoke with many more Amplify founders, not just the ones we’d backed in common. The feedback was universal: Amplify was the investor that mattered to founders, and the firm of record for B2B startups in LA. By bringing Stage VP together with Amplify, we could build on our mutual track records to forge a firm even stronger than its predecessor firms. 

At Amplify, we’re backing new startups out of our Fund VI, making us one of the few firms in Los Angeles that deep into the Roman numerals. Paul has been in VC in LA for more than 25 years, as have I. Connor, newly promoted to partner, is closing in on a decade of experience. Far from being an emerging manager, our team has been through every kind of economic cycle, every kind of market, and every kind of challenge a startup will face. If you’re building a B2B startup and you’re looking for your first round of capital, come talk to us!