A little-known founder is trying to do something Silicon Valley loves almost as much as startups: build a permanent machine. Maria Davidson, the 34-year-old founder of construction software company Kojo, is leading California Renewal, a new political group backed by tech heavyweights and aiming to raise as much as $1 billion over the coming years to push moderate, pro-business ideas in California.
That’s a serious number for a group that does not yet have the name recognition of California’s union blocs or its older business-aligned organizations. But it also fits a familiar pattern: when the state’s politics tilt left enough to unsettle tech money, the response is usually not silence. It is organization, and then a war chest.
Who is Maria Davidson?
Davidson is not a veteran Sacramento operator. She was born in the Soviet Union, grew up in Israel, moved to the U.K. at 13, studied at Oxford, and later came to San Francisco after meeting Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, who recruited her as chief of staff. She eventually left to start Kojo, a platform for construction materials management, but politics clearly never left her system.
In practice, that outsider status may be part of the appeal. Silicon Valley has long rewarded people who skip the normal ladder, and Davidson is now pitching the same logic to California politics: don’t just fight election by election, build an institution that lasts. It is a tidy slogan, and also a not-so-subtle critique of how short-term most political giving really is.
California Renewal’s political agenda
The group’s pitch is simple: create a permanent voice for centrist, pro-growth politics in a state Davidson says is too shaped by organized labor and too comfortable with spending. California Renewal is not the first outfit to make that argument; the California Business Roundtable and David Crane’s Govern for California have been saying versions of it for years. The difference here is the scale of ambition – and the names attached to it.
Among the reported backers are Lonsdale, Greenoaks Capital founder Neil Mehta, and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. Davidson said the fundraising is going well, and the group has been hearing from people across the state, not just in the Bay Area. That matters because California political projects often die in the same place they were born: inside a tech echo chamber.
- Goal: raise up to $1 billion over the coming years
- Near-term fundraising target: $100 million this year
- Stated focus: affordability, housing, entrepreneurship, safer cities, and lower spending growth
Why tech money is moving now
Davidson’s case rests on a set of complaints that have become standard in California tech circles: services have not kept pace with spending, the state is hard to build in, and organized labor has too much leverage. She points to low math proficiency among eighth graders, congestion that leaves California ranked 26th in the country, and $37 billion spent on homelessness since 2019 with homelessness still up 20%. Those are the kind of figures that turn donor frustration into political action.
The timing is awkward, which is why it works. Union leaders are pushing a 5% wealth tax on billionaires, and that has clearly sharpened the interest of wealthy tech figures who might otherwise have remained casual observers. California has seen this movie before: when taxes, housing, and labor fights collide, tech tends to discover civic virtue.
A campaign built for the long haul
Davidson insists California Renewal is meant to be broader than a tech operation, with supporters and conversations in Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Central Valley. That is smart politics, at least on paper. A movement that looks like a Bay Area donor club on day one tends to stay a Bay Area donor club on day 1,000.
The bigger test is whether the group can translate money and elite anxiety into durable influence. California already has plenty of ideological organisms; what it lacks is patience. If California Renewal really does turn into a standing machine rather than another one-off political checkbook, it could become one of the more consequential private power centers in state politics. If not, it will just be another expensive reminder that tech can fund a message, but not always a majority.