Sapphire Announces Nearly $2 Billion in New Capital Commitments Across Growth-Focused Technology Funds
Largest Capital Raise to Date Underscores Continued Momentum in Growth-Stage Enterprise Investing Bringing Firm’s AUM to $8.8 Billion During Period of Growth and Leadership Team Expansion
SF and Austin, November 30, 2021 — Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire” or the “Firm”), a leading global investment firm partnering with visionary founders, teams and venture funds to build companies of consequence, today announced its largest fundraise to-date. The new capital will help the firm continue to ramp investments in Series B through late-stage enterprise technology companies in the U.S., Europe and Israel. The closings of Sapphire Ventures Fund VI, LP and associated co-investment vehicles bring the Firm’s AUM to $8.8 billion.(a)
“We greatly appreciate the overwhelming support of our limited partners and are honored that they entrust their capital to Sapphire,” said Nino Marakovic, CEO, Partner and Co-Founder of Sapphire. “The speed and scale of this most recent fundraise for our flagship strategy is encouraging and supports our mission to drive innovation within the enterprise industry. We look forward to this next step in our journey as we aim to expand our LP base across the globe and provide our LPs a best-in-class experience. We will continue to pursue our focused investment strategy, supporting category-leading enterprise growth companies and entrepreneurs within our sectors of focus.”
Firm Continues Global Expansion, Doubling Down on European Roots
Today’s announcement follows Sapphire’s February 2021 news that it raised $1.7 billion. The firm’s continued growth has supported the opening of three new offices in Austin, London and San Francisco, as well as the scaling of investments in the European market.
Sapphire’s new London-based team is led by Sapphire founding Partner Andreas Weiskam. Since 2012, Weiskam has driven the firm’s European and Israeli investment activities, which include investments in companies such as Cazoo, Criteo, JFrog, monday.com and Wise, among others. Sapphire Europe has a total of seven team members with plans to add multiple new team members in the coming year.
Sapphire now operates out of four major offices with a global team of more than 40 investment and Portfolio Growth professionals working collaboratively to partner with growth companies in key industry sectors. In addition, the Firm has grown its Portfolio Growth team to carry out its mission to accelerate and support the long-term growth of its portfolio companies. This strategic blend of services is intended to support portfolio company leaders in the areas of talent management, business development, capital markets expertise and focused Centers of Excellence (CoEs).
With the new capital raise, Sapphire will continue to make investments across the lifecycle of companies in its core sectors including Enterprise SaaS, Infrastructure Software, Fintech, Healthcare-IT and Crypto-infrastructure, among others. “At Sapphire, we operate as one global team with deep domain expertise in the most dynamic and relevant technology sectors—underscoring our ability to bring significant value to our portfolio founders,” said Sapphire President, Partner and Co-Founder Jai Das. “We work closely with our portfolio companies to help them identify customers, grow revenue, hire top talent and implement compelling marketing strategies.”
Exits and Investments
As of November 24, 2021, Sapphire Ventures and Sapphire Sport have invested in more than 170 companies globally with more than 75 exits resulting in more than 30 IPOs and 45+ acquisitions.(b)(c) Over the last two years, Sapphire has seen the following portfolio companies experience a liquidity event or public listing: 23andMe, AllyO, Auth0, AvidXchange, Braze, Cazoo, Convercent, Integral Ad Science, JFrog, Kaltura, Localytics, monday.com, Phoenix Labs, Portworx, Punchh, Qubit Digital, Reonomy, Retail Solutions, Segment, Sumo Logic, Wandera and Wise. Across the Sapphire Ventures and Sport platforms, the firm has invested over one billion dollars in 2021.
“With decades of investing experience, we are dedicated to fostering deep partnerships to help each company on their journey as they reach scale,” continued Sapphire CEO Marakovic. “We are staying committed to our strategy of investing in and partnering with companies of consequence as we expand and thrive in today’s dynamic startup landscape.”
Portfolio Growth Team’s Mission is to Help Companies Reach Scale
Sapphire’s Portfolio Growth team has been a key factor to the firm’s continued success, closely working with founders and CEOs to provide value-added services that support their goals within respective industries. Sapphire’s Portfolio Growth team provides portfolio companies with critical growth functions, such as go-to-market strategy, customer and business development, talent acquisition and capital markets services necessary to scale. In June of this year, Sapphire expanded its Portfolio Growth platform by introducing dedicated CoEs, which offer guidance to brands in the form of content, playbooks, workshops and peer-to-peer networking opportunities.
New Appointments, Partners and Promotions
The company also expanded its leadership team with the following appointments:
- Kevin Burke – VP of Strategy
- Ralph DeBernardo – Head of IR, Partner
- Cristina Hohlman – CFO
- Ellie Javadi – CMO
- Chloe Steinberg – Partner, Sapphire Sport
- Krupa Vankayala – VP of People & HR
Promotions
- Rico Mallozzi, VP of Platform, Sapphire Sport
About Sapphire
Sapphire is a leading global technology-focused venture capital firm with more than $8.8 billion in AUM and team members across Austin, London, New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco. For more than two decades, Sapphire has partnered with visionary management teams and venture funds to help scale companies of consequence. Since its founding, Sapphire has invested in more than 170 companies globally resulting in more than 30 IPOs and 45 acquisitions. The firm’s investment strategies — Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners and Sapphire Sport — are focused on scaling companies and venture funds, elevating them to become category leaders. Sapphire’s Portfolio Growth team of experienced operators delivers a strategic blend of value-add services, tools and resources designed to support portfolio company leaders as they scale. To learn more about Sapphire, visit: https://sapphireventures.com.
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(a) Assets Under Management (AUM) represents Sapphire’s Regulatory Assets Under Management as of 12/31/2020 per ADV filed March 2021 as well as new commitments made to Sapphire Funds during calendar year 2021 for growth funds only.
(b) Figure represents all Sapphire direct growth investments that have had an IPO, Public listing, or M&A from the firm’s inception in 2011 to November 2021.
(c) Figure represents all Sapphire direct growth investments made since the Sapphire’s growth funds inception in Jan 2011 to November 2021.
Disclaimer – Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Nothing contained in this article may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Companies mentioned in this article are a representative sample of portfolio companies in which Sapphire has invested in which the author believes such companies fit the objective criteria stated in commentary, which do not reflect all investments made by Sapphire. A complete alphabetical list of Sapphires’ investments made by its direct growth and sports investing strategies is available here. Various statements made by third party guests about Sapphire relate to the nature and type of management services provided by Sapphire and do not constitute testimonials to Sapphires’ investment advisory services and no inference to the contrary should be made. Sapphire does not solicit or make its services available to the public and none of the funds are currently open to new investors. While the Sapphire has used reasonable efforts to obtain information from reliable sources, we make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of third-party information presented herein, which is subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
