VC Tomasz Tunguz sells Woodside home for nearly $21M

Prominent venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz, who spent 14 years at Redpoint Ventures before leaving last fall to start his own $235-million fund, has sold his nearly 8-acre Woodside estate for $20.75 million, according to public records. 

Tunguz and wife Catherine bought 30 Trail Lane in May 2021 for $20 million. They listed it less than two years later in April 2023 for $22.5 million. It went into contract on Aug. 12 and sold Aug. 28 to 30 Trail Lane LLC, which lists the same Palo Alto address as an accounting firm as its mailing address in state records. 

Compass agent Zachary Trailer represented the sellers and DeLeon Realty represented the buyers. Neither could comment due to a non-disclosure agreement on the deal. 

The property is larger than other prominent Woodside deals that have closed this year and the acreage allows for a main house with nearly 8,000 square feet; a 1,400-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bath guest house; an 800-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bath gatekeeper’s house; and a 1,500-square-foot three-car garage with a gym and half bath. The buildings are Italian-inspired with 300-year-old terracotta roof tiles imported from Italy, stone walls and Venetian plaster walls and ceilings in many rooms, according to Trailer’s marketing website for the home.

The grounds include a tennis court, a motor court with two-tiered fountain and fiber optic lighting, olive and pistachio trees to keep with the Italian style, an off-road equestrian trail, saltwater swimming pool and spa, a loggia with outdoor kitchen and heated terracotta and slate floors, and a rustic dining area in a redwood grove near the regulation-size bocce court. 

Interestingly for such a grand estate, the main home has only three bedroom suites. The primary suite takes up the entire upper floor and has a private terrace with a pergola, a sitting room with a fireplace, two dressing rooms, and separate his-and-her water closets and vanities in the bathroom, according to the listing site. 

There are two more bedroom suites on the main floor, both with separate sitting rooms. This floor has the vast majority of the home’s square footage and includes two offices and a sound-insulated music room with a carved wood ceiling from a 15th-century Venetian villa. It was salvaged from the master suite of the 1956 ranch designed by Cliff May that once stood on the property, according to the listing site. 

The home’s previous owners, Carole and Michael Marks, are responsible for building out the property. They bought it for $8 million in early 2000, according to public records, and construction was completed in 2006. Michael Marks is the co-founder and former CEO of Katerra, a now-shuttered modular and construction tech company. He also served as interim CEO of Tesla in 2007 and is a former minority owner of the Golden State Warriors. He is also a founding managing partner of VC firm Celesta Capital, which has raised more than $1 billion since it was formed in 2014, according to Crunchbase. 

Tunguz is well-known in the VC industry for his popular blog and his 14-year tenure at Redpoint, where one of his most prominent investments was a Series A stake in data analytics company Looker in 2013 when it had an $80-million valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal. Looker sold to Google for $2.6 billion in 2019. Tunguz raised $235 million for his new early stage VC fund Theory in less than a year.

Another VC-connected family may be moving into Tunguz’s former home. Frank Rimerman & Company, the accounting firm with the same address as the LLC that bought the property, has a specialty in advising VC clients, according to its website.

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