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Sapphire Ventures

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Sapphire Ventures, LLC
IndustryVenture capital
Founded1996
HeadquartersPalo Alto, California, U.S.
Key people
  • Nino Marakovic (CEO)
  • Abigail Johnson (COO)
  • Cristina Hohlman (CFO)
  • Robert Severo (CCO)
Total assets$5.7 billion
Websitesapphireventures.com

Sapphire Ventures, LLC (also known as just as SAPPHIRE, stylized in caps) is a venture capital firm with offices in Palo Alto, California, Austin, San Francisco, and London.[1][2]

Sapphire primarily invests in Series B through IPO technology companies, as well as tech-focused early stage venture firms, seed, and Series A early-stage sports start-ups.[1]

Some of Sapphire’s current and past investments include:23andMe, AllyO, BetterUp, Brightfield, Catchpoint, Clari, ExactTarget, Inkling, JumpCloud,[3] LeanData, Linkedin and punchh.[4][5]

History

Originally started in 1996 as the venture capital arm of SAP SE, it was known as SAP Ventures.[6][7][8] It split from its parent in 2011 and was rebranded to Sapphire Ventures in 2014.[9]

Today, Sapphire is made up of three investment vehicles: Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners, created in 2012,[10] and Sapphire Sport, launched in 2019.[11] It also has a division called Portfolio Growth, which offers support to its investments.[12]

In March 2015, the company, along with technology companies Cisco Systems, Inc. and Siemens, co-hosted the first industry summit on the Internet of Things, named "IoT: Empowering The Enterprise" in San Jose, California.[13][14] The event was advertised as "connecting investors, startups, technologists and Fortune 1000 executives to explore IoT in the enterprise."

In 2019, Sapphire Ventures raised $1.4 billion, including a $150 million opportunity fund to support larger deals.[15][16]

In February 2021, Sapphire Ventures announced it had raised $1.7 billion across multiple funds for its investments across the U.S., Europe, and Israel. Assets under management (AUM) reached $8.8 Bn at the end of 2021.[1]

In November 2021, the company brought in $2 billion, its largest raise to date, to inject into growth-stage enterprise companies from two funds: Sapphire Ventures Fund VI and Sapphire Ventures Opportunity Fund III.[17]

Sapphire appointed London-based Annalise Dragic as a partner in 2021, in preparation for a major expansion in Europe. This move made Dragic become one of the youngest female venture capital partners in Europe.[18][19]

Some of the investments by Sapphire include 23andMe,[citation needed] Degreed,[20] and JupiterOne.[21] Some well known IPOs include JFrog, Sumo Logic, and monday.com.[22]

Company

Sapphire Ventures

Sapphire Ventures invests in high-growth, expansion-stage technology companies, specifically focusing on business and vertical SaaS; data, analytics, and AI; DevOps; open-source software; cybersecurity; fintech; healthcare; and consumer software.[23]

Sapphire Partners

Launched in 2012, Sapphire Partners is a limited partner that backs early-stage tech venture funds, from seed funds as small as $40 million up to series A investors with more than $100 million in capital.[10]

Sapphire Partners has invested in funds including  Union Square Ventures, Amplify Partners, SaaStr, Point Nine Capital, Data Collective, and Screendoor among others.[1][24]

Sapphire Partners was originally set up as a $405 million fund of funds and was later modified to recycle distributions to meet future contribution obligations.[10]

Sapphire Partners supports an online community called #OpenLP aimed at educating venture investors and tech entrepreneurs about issues related to the venture ecosystem.[25]

Sapphire Sport

In early, 2019, the company launched Sapphire Sport, a $115 million investment vehicle focused on early-stage technology companies at the intersection of sport, media and entertainment.[26]

The fund is backed by an investor group consisting of limited partners including Major League Baseball (MLB) and City Football Group (CFG), AEG, SAP, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Adidas.[27]

Sapphire Sport’s recent investments include Aglet, Buzzer, and Flowhaven in 2020 and Breathwrk[28] in 2021. Recent exits include MyCujoo and Phoenix Labs.[29] In 2022, they invested in POAP.[30]

Portfolio Growth

Sapphire Ventures’ Portfolio Growth team works with its portfolio companies and venture funds to offer support in the areas of customer, partner, and executive talent introductions.[12][31]

In February 2021, the firm announced its $1.7 billion funding round would be used to expand its Portfolio Growth team to cater to start-up requirements.[32]

Investments

Since 1996, Sapphire Ventures has invested in more than 130 companies across 10 countries. By September 2018, the company participated in a $45 million venture capital investment in supply chain technology company project44.[33] There was another private fundraising round announced for project44 in late 2020.[34]

The company has "financed over 120 start-ups, including 23 IPOs and 42 acquisitions since 2011." In 2020, Sapphire invested over $970 million. Two of its companies, JFrog Ltd and Sumo Logic Inc), went public via IPOs in the year. Another six were acquired including Retail Solutions by Twilio.[35]

Some of Sapphire’s current investments include:  6Sense, BetterUp, BlockDaemon, Brightfield, Catchpoint, Clari, feedzai, JumpCloud, LeanData, Pendo, Reltio, and Tetrate.[5]

Some of Sapphire exits include: 23andMe, AllyO, Apigee, Box, ExactTarget, Inkling, JasperSoft, JFrog, Linkedin, monday.com, Square, Tremor Video, Mulesoft, Portworx, punchh and Socrata.[5]

Recognition

In an independent study released on July 29, 2015, CB Insights, recognized Sapphire Ventures as Top 5 VC based on participation in major tech exits. Specifically, the CB Insights Report compiled a list of VCs with at least five of the top 100 exits in the period beginning Q1 2013 and ending Q2 2015, and ranked each VC according to how many of these exits they were involved in. Sapphire Ventures made the list at #4, with 10 such exits to its credit, behind Accel Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital.[36]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Katie Roof (4 February 2021). "Sapphire Ventures Raises $1.7 Billion After Year of Big Exits". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
  2. ^ "Sapphire Ventures secures largest capital raise to date across two new funds". TechCrunch. 2021-11-30. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  3. ^ "JumpCloud raises $159M on $2.56B valuation for cloud directory tool". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  4. ^ "Sapphire Ventures – Portfolio, Partners, Investments, News | Parsers VC". parsers.vc. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  5. ^ a b c "Sapphire Ventures at Angel.co". angel.co. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  6. ^ "SAP Ventures raises $650M in new global VC fund - VCCircle". vccircle.com.
  7. ^ "VC Funding Drops in Q3 – Orange County Business Journal". ocbj.com.
  8. ^ "Mobile-commerce comes of age in India". The Times of India.
  9. ^ Gage, Deborah. "SAP Ventures Changes Name to Sapphire Ventures, Expands Focus", "The Wall Street Journal", 16 October 2014. Retrieved on 7 April 2015
  10. ^ a b c Temkin, Marina (2020-03-09). "Sapphire Partners sees value in investing steadily in early-stage VC". Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  11. ^ "Sapphire Ventures launches $115 million sports tech fund with big-name backers". VentureBeat. 2019-01-28. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  12. ^ a b Elder, Jeff. "Sapphire Ventures explains how it used wine-and-cheese Zoom group therapy sessions to help its portfolio CEOs become stronger leaders in the pandemic". Business Insider. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  13. ^ @SapphireVC on Twitter, "Twitter", 24 March 2015. Retrieved on 13 April 2015.
  14. ^ Escott, Blake. Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Planning Bigger With SAP Today, Finisar Corp. (NASDAQ:FNSR), Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR), "StreetWise Report", 24 March 2015. Retrieved on 13 April 2015
  15. ^ "SAP spinout Sapphire Ventures raises $1.4B for new investments". TechCrunch. 2019-12-18. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  16. ^ "SAP spinout Sapphire Ventures raises $1.4B for new investments". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
  17. ^ Hall, Christine. "Sapphire Ventures secures largest capital raise to date across two new funds". TechCrunch. TechCrunch. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  18. ^ Lockwood, Tasmin. "Sapphire Ventures makes Annalise Dragic one of Europe's youngest partners in the male-dominated world of venture capital". Business Insider. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  19. ^ Ackerman, Naomi (2021-12-14). "Female investor, 29, to spearhead Europe expansion for US VC Sapphire". www.standard.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  20. ^ "Sapphire Ventures-Backed Degreed Raises $153M To Digitally Transform Education". CB Insights Research. 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  21. ^ "JupiterOne Secures $30 Million in Series-B Funding". Global Security Mag Online. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  22. ^ Zaveri, Paayal. "Israeli tech company Monday.com is now valued at $7.8 billion after a successful IPO, and its cofounders say it's all because of a more flexible approach to task management tools". Business Insider. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  23. ^ Fang, Sabrina (2021-05-17). "NVCA Member Spotlight: Sapphire Ventures". National Venture Capital Association - NVCA. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  24. ^ "Venture Capitalists Launch $50 Million Initiative For Emerging Managers". FIN News. 2021-06-18. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  25. ^ Temkin, Marina (2020-03-09). "Sapphire Partners sees value in investing steadily in early-stage VC". Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  26. ^ "Sapphire Ventures Draws Who's Who of Sports to $115 Million Fund". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  27. ^ "'It requires a different way of thinking': Sapphire Sport's strategy for investing during a pandemic". SportsPro. 2021-02-09. Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  29. ^ Dorbian, Iris (2020-02-03). "Sea's Garena buys Phoenix Labs". Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  30. ^ "Sapphire Sports invests in Ethereum-based event attendance app". www.sportsbusinessjournal.com. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
  31. ^ "Building "companies of consequence", a profile of Sapphire Ventures". Maddyness UK. 2021-10-04. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  32. ^ Lahiri, Anusuya (2021-02-04). "Sapphire Ventures Rakes In $1.7B To Fund Tech Startups". Benzinga. Retrieved 2022-03-11.
  33. ^ Phillips, Erica E. (2018-10-01). "Project44 Gets $45 Million in Funding for Freight Tech Expansion". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  34. ^ Page, Paul (2020-12-21). "Supply-Chain Technology Provider Project44 Gains $100 Million in New Backing". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-12-23.(subscription required)
  35. ^ Lahiri, Anusuya, "Sapphire Ventures Rakes In $1.7B To Fund Tech Startups", (c) Benzinga via Yahoo! Finance, February 4, 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  36. ^ "Which Venture Capital Firms Are Consistently In The Largest Tech Exits?". Retrieved 2015-09-12.
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