Sapphire Ventures’ Post

📢 Just released—Our September 2024 Market Memo takes a look back at Q3 software performance across public and private markets and the trends shaping the rest of the year. 👀 🔹 AI dominance continues: Generative AI remained a key driver of activity, with some of the largest rounds this quarter, including $1B for Safe Superintelligence and multiple $500M+ rounds. 🔹 VC investment slowdown: A particularly weak August, combined with soft activity in July and September, resulted in Q3 marking the lowest monthly and quarterly funding totals we’ve seen in years. 🔹 Public market resilience: Despite turbulence earlier in the quarter, U.S. indices ended Q3 higher, with the Nasdaq up 3% and the S&P 500 up 5%, following the Fed’s first rate cut in September. 🔹 Late-stage funding comeback: After several quarters of decline, late-stage funding rebounded in Q3, exceeding 40% of total investment—potentially signaling a shift in market dynamics heading into 2025. 🔹 Macro forces at play: Interest rates, employment, wars, weather, and the U.S. election are key forces shaping market sentiment as we look ahead. Check out the chart below for a breakdown of the largest Generative AI and enterprise software rounds in Q3 2024, and download the full memo for more (Link in the comments) 👇 CC: Kevin Burke, Lou Segall, & Jake DellaPasqua #VentureCapital #EnterpriseSoftware #SaaS

A much-deserved congratulations to our Partner and Head of Portfolio Growth Rami Branitzky for being recognized as a top ⭐ VC GTM Superstar ⭐ in Cory Bolotsky's latest newsletter! 10 years ago, Rami launched the Portfolio Growth platform with a mission to help our portfolio companies scale. What first started as a team of one helping facilitate customer introductions has grown into a robust GTM engine. Made up of experienced operators, Portfolio Growth plays a crucial role in helping our portfolio companies land new customers, hire exceptional talent, discover best practices in the areas of revenue and engineering excellence, and more. 🌟 Read the newsletter: https://bolots.ky/p/vc-gtm 👉 Learn more about our Portfolio Growth platform and how we help our portfolio companies scale: https://lnkd.in/gdm6XdfV #VCTalent #GTM #VentureCapital

📢 Tomorrow, Kevin Burke, Partner and Head of Strategy at Sapphire Ventures, will join an expert panel at the Mergermarket Private Equity Forum in Austin to share his VC perspective on: 💡Key drivers of technology deal flow, from software to cloud computing 💡How private equity GPs are competing with VCs and strategies for the best deals 💡GenAI: Where are we seeing real traction and where are we a few years away from seeing impact? 💡What are some top technology investment trends that venture firms predict will emerge in 2025? Joining Kevin will be an incredible lineup of industry leaders: — Martin Schwertmann, Partner at Kirkland & Ellis — Alan Cline, Head of North America at Hg — Eugene Esmonde, Co-Head TMT Private Equity at BCI — Carl Press, Partner at Thoma Bravo — Sandeep Swaminathan, Senior Managing Director at Haveli Investments Find more information at the link in the comments. It’s not too late to register👇 #GenerativeAI #MergerMarket

What’s the most pressing challenge for the next generation? In the NYSE’s FutureInFive interview series, Sapphire Ventures' President, Partner, and Co-Founder Jai Das emphasizes the need for holistic healthcare solutions: “We currently have the technology needed to provide better healthcare; it’s about implementation and making sure people can take care of themselves.” Check out the full series at the link in comments 🎥👇 #Innovation #Healthcare #FutureInFive

On the heels of Glean's recent $260M Series E, Sapphire Ventures Partner Rajeev Dham caught up with Glean CEO Arvind Jain to dive into Arvind’s motivation for launching the ultimate Work AI platform, how Glean is making employees AI-fluent, and where he sees the company in five years… 🔮 “In five years, there's going to be lots of vertical AI applications that our customers will be building, and vertical AI SaaS companies that will power their AI features using Glean's platform." — Arvind Jain We are thrilled to partner with Arvind and his powerhouse team as they redefine enterprise productivity with AI. Check out the video below and read our recent blog linked in the comments.👇 CC: Jai Das, Casber Wang, Demi Obayomi, & Adam Liu #CompaniesofConsequence #WorkAI #GenAI

While Europe’s fintech sector saw a sharp decline in funding after 2021, fintechs are moving back into the spotlight. 💫30 fintech startups, including Brite Payments, Upvest, and Allica Bank, made it onto Sifted’s B2B SaaS Rising 100 ranking, sponsored by Sapphire Ventures. According to Sapphire Ventures Partner Andreas Weiskam, the focus has now shifted to sustainable, efficient growth as startups adapt to a leaner investment environment. With emerging technologies like AI and CFO tech stacks gaining momentum, there’s still significant potential for fintech innovation. Read the full article from Sifted to explore what’s next for Europe’s fintech landscape and check out the annual Rising 100 ranking and report. Links in the comments👇 #fintech #SaaS #SiftedRising100

Reflecting on one of our favorite summer moments… 💫Sapphire’s 3rd Annual Hypergrowth Engineering Summit, where we brought together 200+ VPEs and CTOs from some of the most impactful startups on the planet.   We’re looking back at 4 key themes that stood out and still ring true today: 🔹The Era of Productionalized GenAI is Here: Companies are moving beyond experimentation to production deploys. Vladimir Zhukov (Head of AI/ML at Stripe) highlighted the emergence of new GenAI application patterns. Though still solidifying, these patterns will address key design considerations around infrastructure access and optimization, open vs. closed model selection, fine-tuning methods, evaluation approaches, and cyber threat defense. 🔹AI-Powered DevOps is Transforming the SDLC: Amjad Masad (CEO at Replit) noted AI's role in automating the ‘outer loop’ of software development, including requirements generation, automated testing, CD/experimentation, and more. Rama Akkiraju (VP AI/ML at NVIDIA) emphasized AI’s impact on operations management and root cause analysis. 🔹AI-Integrated Product Strategy Requires Focus on UX & Data: Continuous collection of behavioral data and user feedback are essential for refining models and delivering on a more personalized UX. Will Larson (CTO at Carta) emphasized the importance of human in the loop validations, from both back office staff and real end-users, to improve accuracy. 🔹Constructing AI-Ready Organizations Require a Cultural Shift: Charles Frye (AI Engineer at Modal) stressed the need for traditional software engineers to look beyond just their codebase. Instead, focus on data flows and data quality to become more well-rounded AI practitioners. Catch more of the highlights below or watch our full set of on-demand session replays (link in the comments) for a deeper dive into this year’s learnings. 👇 We're already gearing up for 2025 and can't wait to see you at our 4th annual! #Engineering #SapphireHypergrowthEng #GenAI

"At the growth stage, it’s all about execution. The biggest debate we have is whether the team can go all the way." — Sapphire Ventures Partner, President, and Co-founder Jai Das shared on the latest episode of the Origins podcast, produced by OpenLP from Sapphire Partners (the LP arm of Sapphire Ventures). With a few dozen software exits under his belt, few know enterprise investing like Jai. Similarly, Mike Maples, Jr, co-founder and Partner at Floodgate, is often credited with pioneering seed investing, with companies like Twitter, Twitch, and Lyft in his portfolio. Together, they join Origins co-hosts Nicholas Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, and Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners, to discuss how they spot the next big winners in venture at their respective stages. Listen to the full episode linked below to hear from two of the best in venture on what it takes to identify pattern-breaking founders and companies of consequence. #OpenLP #Origins #VC 

Is it too soon to judge if AI has had an economic impact? 🤔In a recent episode of SaaStock’s SaaS Revolution Show, Alexander Theuma sat down with Sapphire Ventures Partner Casber Wang to get his perspective on the current state of AI—where we are in its evolution and how he's evaluating startups in the space. For founders navigating the AI landscape, Casber also shares: 🔹What he’s looking for in companies that Sapphire invests in 🔹Why he favors founders who constantly think about talent valuation; from tracking talent to their talent bench 🔹Why building a great software standalone is rarely enough – you need to be backwardly compatible with all the other tools on the stack and nail distribution 🔹The watershed moment in AI and why its garnered so much attention from founders and media 🎧 Listen to the full episode for more linked in the comments. #AI #startups #SaaS 

Congrats to Moveworks on surpassing $100M ARR and achieving centaur status! 🎉 With an agentic AI Copilot that’s saving customers hundreds of thousands of productivity hours each year, Moveworks is helping companies unlock real value from their GenAI projects. Serving 10% of Fortune 500 employees and doubling their customer base over the past two years, they’re setting a new standard for what GenAI can achieve in the enterprise. Here’s to many more milestones ahead! 🚀 CC: Rajeev Dham & Bhavin Shah #AI #TechInnovation