Sapphire Ventures
Sapphire Ventures, LLC (also known as just as SAPPHIRE, stylized in caps) is a venture capital firm with offices in Austin, California, Palo Alto, London and San Francisco. 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. Some of Sapphire’s current and past investments include:23andMe, AllyO, BetterUp, Brightfield, Catchpoint, Clari, ExactTarget, Inkling, JumpCloud, LeanData, Linkedin and punchh. History. Originally started in 1996 as the venture capital arm of SAP SE, it was known as SAP Ventures. It split  from its parent in 2011 and was rebranded to Sapphire Ventures in 2014. Today, Sapphire is made up of three investment vehicles: Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners, created in 2012, and Sapphire Sport, launched in 2019. It also has a division called Portfolio Growth, which offers support to its investments. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Some of the investments by Sapphire include 23andMe, Degreed, and JupiterOne. Some well known IPOs include JFrog, Sumo Logic, and monday.com. 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. 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. Sapphire Partners has invested in funds including  Union Square Ventures, Amplify Partners, SaaStr, Point Nine Capital, Data Collective, and Screendoor among others. 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. Sapphire Partners supports an online community called #OpenLP aimed at educating venture investors and tech entrepreneurs about issues related to the venture ecosystem. 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. 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. Sapphire Sport’s recent investments include Aglet, Buzzer, and Flowhaven in 2020 and Breathwrk in 2021. Recent exits include MyCujoo and Phoenix Labs. In 2022, they invested in POAP. = 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. 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. In June 2021, Sapphire’s Portfolio Growth team launched ‘centers of excellence’ which offer founders support with sales and GTM strategies, international expansion, insights into how CIO and CXO enterprise decision-makers evaluate new and emerging technologies, and capital market oversight. 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. There was another private fundraising round announced for project44 in late 2020. 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. Some of Sapphire’s current investments include:  6Sense, BetterUp, BlockDaemon, Brightfield, Catchpoint, Clari, feedzai, JumpCloud, LeanData, Pendo, Reltio, and Tetrate. Some of Sapphire exits  include: 23andMe, AllyO, Apigee, Box, ExactTarget, Inkling, JasperSoft, JFrog, Linkedin, monday.com, Square, Tremor Video, Mulesoft, Portworx, punchh and Socrata. 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.