Fund Recycling Moves the Needle for Both LPs and GPs. Here’s How.

For as powerful of a mechanism as fund recycling can be, we believe it is an under discussed strategy in venture investing. It can transform a good fund into a great fund, and a great fund into an ev...

The Black Swan Year: How 2020 Impacted Venture Investing and Performance

2020 was a year that profoundly disrupted nearly every aspect of life, so it’s no surprise that the pandemic’s effects made ripples throughout the venture landscape too. In the spirit of our #Ope...

The First Close Podcast: Nate Leung, Sapphire Partners

In this episode of The First Close podcast, we interview Nate Leung, Principal with Sapphire Partners, to shed light on the limited partners’ perspective on new venture funds....

Diversity in VC: Learnings from an LP Audit and how we can make this better together

This winter, Women in VC, the world’s largest community of female venture investors, released a report on “The Untapped Potential of Women-led Funds.” The research was stark, if not surprising....

Virtual Annual Meetings are Here to Stay: Best Practices for Re-Imagining the AGM for our Remote World

Love them or hate them, virtual annual meetings (AGMs) are here to stay for now. Given this shift, and my observations from numerous virtual annual meetings I have attended in the last couple months, ...

The 4 P’s of Fundraising for Emerging Managers

Raising capital as a first-time venture capital manager (or “VC”) is always challenging – primarily due to a lack of track record and performance coupled with not knowing or having access to pro...

What you need to know about fundraising this year

We’re a little over half-way through 2020 and COVID-19, rollercoaster equity markets and record unemployment rates have dominated the 2020 fundraising narrative.  The fundraising discussion seems t...

The LP Perspective on the Current Business Environment

Semil Shah and Beezer Clarkson talk about the LP perspective on current business environment for GPs raising new funds, and more!...

Which investments generate the greatest value in venture: Consumer or Enterprise?

One of our favorite areas to explore is: as a venture investor, do your odds of making better returns improve if you only invest in either enterprise or consumer companies? Or do you need a mix of bot...

Fundraising tips – How to build a better data room

Because of our role in the venture ecosystem,  we often find emerging and established GPs asking us for best practices in putting together a data room. So, in the spirit of #OpenLP, this blog is our...

Beezer Clarkson hosts Anne Martin, CIO of Wesleyan University

In this special episode of Origins, Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners hosts Anne Martin, the Chief Investment Officer of Wesleyan University. Anne was previously a Director of Investments at Yale U...

#OpenLP 2.0 – The Reboot

Many aspects of venture funding remain a mystery, even to those working within the industry.  When we launched Sapphire Partners to invest in venture funds, we noticed the role of limited partners (L...

What Makes a Good Annual Meeting? An LP’s Point of View

Annual meetings are simple in concept but can be difficult to execute well. At Sapphire Partners, we are constantly asked what makes a good annual meeting, which makes sense given the typical GP atten...

#OpenLP: The internationalisation of venture capital: will this affect LP allocations?

Venture capital is becoming increasingly globalised. The VC stronghold is said to be shifting to regions outside the US, and VCs are moving to make investments across multiple geographies. Is this rea...

#OpenLP: When Money Isn’t Enough: How to Distinguish Yourself as a VC in a Crowded Market

In 2018, U.S. venture funds invested over $130 billion in startups — crossing the $100 billion mark for the first time since the dot-com boom in 2000. In addition, U.S. venture funds themselves also...

#OpenLP Video: How Does Data Influence LP and GP Decisions?

Last month I had the opportunity to speak at SuperReturn365 on a panel focused on how LPs and GPs use data in our respective business. Some of the questions Tom Henriksson, Suranga Chandratillake, Mi...

The LP Perspective with Beezer Clarkson, Lisa Edgar, Chris Douvos, & Teddy Schleifer

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The Shifting Funding Landscape – Slush 2018

Should VCs fight against the incentive of growing? How do ICOs and other instruments affect traditional equity investing? To what scale does the role of a VC expand to nowadays? A group of prominent i...

Europe’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem – Looking to the Future by Understanding the Past

Beezer Clarkson and Colette Ballou will draw on their myriad of experience as investors and entrepreneurs, and discuss the up and down cycles in European technology landscape and where they think thin...

Building Billion Dollar European Companies

Hear the learnings and observations from Magnus, Co-founder of iZettle and Måns, CEO and Chairman of Qliktech, on what it takes to build companies of such stature in terms of talent management, manag...

LPs Push Into The Crypto Fray

There is nothing like being ten years fashionably late to a party, though given VC interest investing into crypto[1], it seems like a good time to discuss what LPs think about crypto as an investment ...

Raising A Fund? 9 Questions That Help Get You To GP/LP Fit

This post serves a part two of a two part series that samir kaji and I are co-authoring to help VC’s navigate through fundraising cycles and engender better and more relevant relationships with LP�...

LP survey results: What LP’s are saying about emerging venture manager funds

This post serves a part one of a two part series that Beezer Clarkson at Sapphire Ventures and I are co-authoring to help VC’s (specifically emerging managers) navigate through fundraising cycles an...

Turning the Tables on Notation Capital

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Nicholas Chirls and Alex Lines of Notation Capital on their Origins podcast about raising their new $27m fund, Notation II. Notation is a“first check” ...

Notation II Pitch Deck + Origins Episode

A few years ago, shortly after we announced the launch of Notation, we decided to publish the pitch deck that we used to raise our first fund. Many startups do this in order to share best practices, s...

Where is venture capital heading? The trends, views and hotspots

In an exclusive interview with Winter Mead, Principal of Sapphire Ventures, we discuss the trends in the venture capital industry, changing LP appetite, emergence of new tech circles and the evolution...

The A to Z on Series A: Part Three | The Exit

This is our third and final post on Series A investing. As a quick recap, in addition to direct growth-stage investing, Sapphire Ventures invests in early-stage venture funds, specifically those focus...

The A to Z on Series A: Part Two

In my first post on Series A investing, we looked at active investors at the A-level and found that while there’s a recent downward trend in the number of Series A deals done, there are three times ...

The A To Z On Series A: Part One

At Sapphire, as a matter of good investment discipline (and our personal love for geeking out over venture data), we routinely set aside time to stress test our investment assumptions. And as many of ...

Beezer’s Breakdown – Take II

Last month Harry Stebbings invited me back on The Twenty Minute VC to talk about venture fundraising activity for Q1 2017. We had a great time talking about things like:...

Parsing The Maddening Venture Capital Market

In my previous two posts, I took a look at venture-backed value creation across enterprise and consumer investments since 1995, highlighting that enterprise has traditionally been more attractive as a...

Origins S2-E8: Winter Mead — Sapphire Ventures

Winter Mead is a Vice President at Sapphire Ventures, where he focuses on Sapphire’s fund investments in the United States and internationally. Before joining Sapphire Ventures in 2014, he worked at...

TechCrunch Equity Podcast

Welcome to the second episode of TechCrunch’s newest podcast, Equity, our venture capital-focused show focused on the numbers, people and companies driving the technology industry....

VC Interest Piqued In Healthcare

At Sapphire Ventures, we aim to proactively research spaces as we search for new investments. Most recently, we have been taking a closer look at early-stage healthcare investments....

Exiting The Exit

Everyone in the venture-backed technology industry — entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and limited partners — can probably agree that a healthy exit market is critical. Without sufficien...

Venture Capital In 2017 Is When The Rubber Hits The Road For Returns

In the United States, VC funds raised a whopping $40.6 billion in 2016[1]. It was the largest year for VC fundraising since 2000 when the venture industry raked in a jaw dropping $101.4 billion[1]. Ye...

Why You Probably Won’t Invest In The Next Unicorn

Winter is a venture capital investor at Sapphire Ventures. Before joining Sapphire in 2014, he worked at Hall Capital Partners. Prior to Hall, Winter founded Mead and Mead, an international food distr...

Winning By Losing In Early-Stage Investing

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One Year Later: Our European Report Card

A little over a year ago I published in TechCrunch “A Closer Look At European Investing”. In the article, I outlined reasons why we at Sapphire Ventures are bullish on Europe, particularly as a li...

Speaking At Slush And TechCrunch Disrupt

I just got back from 10 days on the road in Europe, where I was invited to speak at two conferences, Slush in Helsinki and TechCrunch Disrupt in London....

Why Enterprise Funds May Return More Capital Than Consumer Funds

This is the first part in a series of writings on enterprise and consumer investments in venture capital (VC). Stay tuned for upcoming posts as we explore investment and exit trends related to this to...

Twenty Minute VC Podcast: Beezer Clarkson, Sapphire Ventures

Yesterday was my second time going on The Twenty Minute VC to share my perspective as a limited partner (LP) in venture. I always love conversations with Harry Stebbings, a good friend who is always f...

New York Venture State Of Mind

At Sapphire Ventures, although our portfolio has traditionally skewed towards the Bay Area, we constantly track a number of other vibrant tech ecosystems, including New York. Yesterday in a blog post,...

Breaking Our Rules

Yesterday, Nicholas Chirls and Alex Lines at Notation Capital launched the first episode of Origins, a new podcast about limited partners (LPs). As a sponsor of the series, I’m very excited for them...

Origins: A Podcast About Limited Partners – Episode 1

Eighteen months ago, we set out to raise our first fund for Notation Capital. We knew bits and pieces about the Limited Partner community (the firms and people that invest in VC funds), but boy did we...

Dear VCs, There’s Something You Need To Know About Raising Funds This Year

Times are changing. Startups and VCs are facing tougher times, layoffs, down rounds and eroding valuations. However, already a record amount of money has gone into U.S. venture funds this year. As an ...

The Money Behind The Money: A Conversation With LPs and GPs

Two LPs, a GP and a managing director from Cambridge Associates walk into a bar. Sounds like the opening to a killer gag that would be appreciated by dozens....

Why Your Investor Might Pass On Your Next Fund

For many investors looking to invest in a venture capital fund, benchmarking is a key part of the due diligence process because it helps determine which managers have historically performed well again...

VC Fundraising Trends: Cause For Alarm Or Business As Usual?

At Sapphire Ventures we do quite a bit of internal analysis on trends in venture capital fundraising. After all, we’re a limited partner in early-stage VC funds, and we like to understand how capita...

Insights From The Venture Capital Fundraising Market

At Sapphire Ventures, we make a habit of analyzing the U.S. venture capital fundraising market to inform our investment perspective as a limited partner (LP) in early-stage VC funds. Some of this revi...

(Some) LPs Speak Up

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Reading The Venture Tea Leaves For 2016

Investing in the future is what limited partners (LPs) do for a living. It’s inexact, yet over the years Sapphire Ventures has developed a process to identify trends — in technology, and the v...

How To Market A Fund And Pique An Investor’s Interest

The latest batch of questions from readers has them asking about marketing a fund, as well as the nitty-gritty of 506(c) offerings, which came about as a result of the JOBS Act signed in April 2012. R...

Emerging Managers Can Bring Top-Tier Returns

You asked and we answered. More emerging managers than ever seem to be raising venture funds. And so a number of readers emailed their questions of how to stand out in a crowded fundraising market. ...

A Closer Look At European Investing

We’re bullish on Europe, and that strikes some folks in the U.S. as a bit strange. It’s not that Europe is all we know — we’re an investor in early venture stage funds (an “LP”) in the...

The New Pace Of Venture Capital Fundraising

Many would agree that company financing dynamics in venture capital have changed in recent years, especially with respect to valuations rising, round sizes increasing and companies staying private for...

To SPV Or Not To SPV: Decoding The Pros And Cons

Over the last year, I have fielded several questions from VCs on the Limited Partner (LP) perspective on special purpose vehicles (SPVs), so I decided to write a brief post on how I (as an LP) think a...

How To Raise An Institutional Seed Fund In Europe

Sapphire Ventures’ Fund Investments team backs emerging and established fund managers with deep expertise in enterprise and consumer technologies. As a member of this team I have the pleasure of mee...

Be Fair And Transparent In Your Fee Structure 

A new feature launched by pehub and affiliate publication VCJ allowed you, dear reader, the opportunity to Ask an LP questions about the hottest topics in venture. Anything was on the table and open f...

Various Factors That Affect Portfolio Returns In A Bull Market

Recently, Josh Kopelman publicly released First Round Capital’s quarterly LP letter, stating that portfolio returns in venture capital will be affected by two numbers: entry valuations and exit pric...

Top 10 Tips For Pitching An LP

Money is flowing into the venture industry at near record levels. More than 250 venture capital funds raised nearly $30 billion last year, more funds than in any year since 2001, according to the ...