Sapphire Ventures managing director Steve Abbott took to the main stage at GCVI Summit with a fascinating account of his firm’s evolution since spinning off from software company SAP in 2011.
Speaking to Tami Hutchinson, senior managing director of Intel Capital, Abbott said SAP was always a “very important partner”, but had become even more aligned in light of flourishing US venture markets in recent years.
VC had become commoditised as a result, prompting each firm to differentiate itself from its peers, making the SAP connection valuable leverage in today’s climate, Abbott argued.
“We moved toward that relationship because our focus on enterprise technology differentiates us because SAP has at last count 920 of the 1000 largest companies, which helps us take on software in some kind of meaningful way. That can be helpful in conducting due diligence and ensuring post-deal value add [for instance],” he said.
Despite maintaining good relations with SAP, Sapphire Ventures now operated as a wholly-independent VC firm with $4.5bn under management.
Later in his talk, Abbott tipped data analytics for sports media and entertainment as one of the best software-related bets.
“These sectors are growing roughly two-or-three times faster than GDP, whether in the US, Europe or Asia, and data analytics is starting to play a large role,” he said.
“You have trillion dollar markets where people are spending their discretionary income, for example sports teams or large footwear companies, and yet they tend to be depending how you look at it three-to-seven years behind how analytics is used in, for instance, the tech space,” he concluded.