David Somers

David Somers is a Partner at Storm Ventures, a Menlo Park–based early-stage B2B venture firm with more than $2 billion under management. He joined Storm in September 2025 as its newest partner, focusing on the next generation of AI-native enterprise software at the intersection of AI, HRTech, FinTech, and the future of work. He brings more than 20 years of operating experience in enterprise software rather than a traditional finance background.

Somers is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Rallyteam, a San Francisco startup founded in 2013 that built an internal talent-marketplace/internal-mobility platform to help companies develop, engage, and retain employees by matching them to projects and growth opportunities. Rallyteam raised an $8.6M Series A in 2017 co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Storm Ventures (with earlier backing that included the Cornerstone Innovation Fund). In 2018 the company was acqui-hired by Workday.

At Workday, Somers rose through a series of senior product roles over roughly seven years — General Manager of Talent, Group GM for the Office of the CHRO products, and ultimately Chief Product Officer — where he helped drive Workday's shift toward an AI-first company spanning its connected HCM and finance platform. Earlier in his career he was one of the early executives at Cornerstone OnDemand, building out its alliance and partner ecosystem (VP of Global Alliances & Strategic Initiatives), and held roles at Replicon, Ariba, PwC, and The Walt Disney Company.

Somers describes joining Storm as a "full-circle moment," since Storm had backed Rallyteam years earlier. Outside of work he is a family man and an avid cyclist who enjoys exploring routes around the world.

• Invests in AI-native enterprise software — founders using AI to rebuild how organizations run HR, finance, and go-to-market.
• Core themes: AI, HRTech, FinTech, and the future of work, drawing directly on his operating experience as Workday's CPO and as a talent-tech founder.
• Storm's firm-level thesis emphasizes B2B SaaS with strong go-to-market fit, not just product-market fit — captured in its "Survival to Thrival" GTM framework — typically writing ~$1M–$5M checks into early-stage companies.
• Values operator-to-founder partnership: in his words, he was drawn to a firm whose "commitment extends far beyond capital to true partnership." Expect him to add value on enterprise product strategy, CHRO/CFO buyer dynamics, and scaling GTM.
• Sweet spot is a founder who deeply understands an enterprise workflow (especially in people/finance functions) and is rebuilding it AI-first.