About Doug
Doug is a co-founder of Sapphire Ventures, as well as a founding partner and lead investor for Sapphire Sport. He currently manages the firm’s investments in Tonal, Convercent, Manticore Games, and PlayVS. Doug’s previous investments include LinkedIn, DocuSign (NASDAQ: DOCU), Phoenix Labs (acquired by Garena), Paytm, Fitbit (NYSE: FIT), Square (NYSE: SQ), and Ticketfly (acquired by Pandora). He is focused on investing in early-stage technology companies at the intersection of sports, media and entertainment technologies.
Doug has worked for a venture-backed startup as well as for one of his entrepreneurial heroes, George Lucas. He launched the business development group for Lucasfilm, creating strategic partnerships for Star Wars prequels.
Doug started his career in investment banking, with a focus on technology, at Robertson Stephens. More recently, he managed the Intel 64 fund at Intel Capital. Doug has lived in Madrid, Spain; Santiago, Chile; and Walker, Minnesota. He graduated with a bachelor’s from Duke University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, both with high honors.
investments
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Black Duck provides the world’s only end-to-end OSS Logistics solution, enabling enterprises of every size to optimize the opportunities and solve the logistical challenges that come with open source adoption and management.
Acquired by Synopsys (2017)
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Founded on the idea that enhanced insight enables more effective oversight of an organization’s compliance program, Convercent’s cloud-based, integrated compliance management suite pairs a refreshingly intuitive user interface with natively integrated reporting and analytics.
Acquired by OneTrust (2021)
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Culture Amp makes it easy to collect, understand and act on employee feedback.
CEO: Didier Elzinga
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The market leader and global standard for electronic signature.
NASDAQ: DOCUIPO 2018
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Endeca provides enterprise search for large companies including and specializing in guided search, auto-categorizing results based on the keywords someone enters.
Acquired by Oracle (2011)
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Fevo enables “social commerce” by making it easier to bring people together to create unforgettable group live event experiences and to share e-commerce preferences. With a powerful payments technology and a smart approach, Fevo is revolutionizing how groups purchase and socialize their transactions.
CEO: Ari Daie
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Imprivata provides healthcare organizations with a security and identity platform that delivers ubiquitous access, positive identity management, and multifactor authentication. Imprivata enables healthcare securely by establishing trust between people, technology, and information to address critical compliance and security challenges while improving productivity and the patient experience.
NYSE: IMPRIPO 2014
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iYogi is an early leader in fulfilling the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). iYogi is a global software and services company providing solutions for consumers in both, the home and business. Leveraging its proprietary Digital Service Cloud IoT platform, iYogi delivers support to millions of customers.
CEO: Uday Challu
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Jibe builds SaaS recruiting solutions that enable leading companies to hire the best talent, regardless of their existing systems. We are dedicated to making recruiting simple with solutions for enterprises to attract and engage candidates using the latest technology.
Acquired by iCIMS (2019)
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LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with nearly 800 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide.
NASDAQ: LNKDAcquired by Microsoft (2016)
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Localytics is the leading mobile engagement platform. Localytics was acquired by Upland Software (2020).
Acquired by Upland Software (2020)
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Manticore Games is the developer and operator of CORE™, a digital playground and community designed to unleash imagination and explore new play experiences. Manticore Games was established by industry veterans from Electronic Arts, Blizzard, Respawn, Xfire, Roblox, Trion Worlds, Crystal Dynamics and Zynga.
CEO: Frederic Descamps
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mycujoo empowers sport federations, leagues and clubs to easily livestream their competitions and matches. By combining low costs of production with state-of-the art quality and technology, mycujoo enables the creation of a worldwide sports network of nano-communities at national, regional and hyper-local levels.
Acquired by ELEVEN (2020)
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Newgen is the leading provider of a unified digital transformation platform with native process automation, content services, and communication management capabilities.
NSE: NEWGENIPO 2018
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Overtime is the leading brand for the next generation of sports fans. They publish short and longform programming which generates over 1.5 billion views each month.
CEO: Dan Porter
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Phoenix Labs is an independent game company based in Vancouver, British Columbia and San Mateo, California. The company was founded in 2014 to create games for it’s passionate community and evolve the way great games are made and enjoyed.
Acquired by Garena (2020)
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PlayVS is the leading amateur esports platform. It is the single community where players come together to compete, fans gather to spectate and coaches manage their programs. Through strategic partnerships with the NFHS and top game publishers, PlayVS has become the backbone of high school esports.
CEO: Delane Parnell
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Return Path is an email marketing solution that works on both the sending and receiving sides of email in order to help commercial email senders get more email delivered to the inbox. The program enables senders to diagnose and prevent email deliverability and rendering failures by improving and maintaining email sending reputations.
Acquired by Validity (2019)
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SAVO plugs your sales reps into the collective genius of your entire organization by connecting them to the best resources, insights and expertise so that they never sell alone.
Acquired by Seismic (2018)
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Spring is the global leader in enterprise mobility solutions. Our cloud-based, enterprise-grade mobile applications are designed to optimize productivity for medium to large field workforces for Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Utilities and Transport companies.
CEO: Chris Lamontagne
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Tonal is the world’s most intelligent fitness system and the first truly personalized approach to strength training. Tonal enables people to lead healthier lives by providing them with the technology, guidance, and community support to effectively reach their fitness goals.
CEO: Aly Orady
News + Perspectives
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Transforming Lives Through Fitness, Health and Wellness: Why Sapphire is Thrilled to Once Again Back Tonal
Investment Portfolio News / March 31, 2021Transforming Lives Through Fitness, Health and Wellness: Why Sapphire is Thrilled to Once Again Back Tonal
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Sapphire Sport: Investing in the Future of Consumer Experiences