Braden is an associate at Gradient, where he focuses on investments across the AI ecosystem. He works across the investment process, including sourcing, founder outreach, and diligence, and partners with Gradient’s operating team to support portfolio companies. He is particularly interested in working with emerging founders as new technologies take shape and learning from the highly technical and ambitious people building at the frontier of AI.

Prior to Gradient, Braden spent two summers as analyst at S32, where he sourced and evaluated early-stage AI companies and supported diligence across AI dev tools and gaming. Previously, he worked with the finance team at an AI database startup, SingleStore.

Braden holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington, where he studied finance and data science.

He lives in San Francisco and, outside of work, is an avid skier who loves spending time in the backcountry and is surfing, running, and cliff jumping whenever possible.