Sequoia Capital was the venture capital firm (VC) most active alongside corporates in the first quarter. It was in the syndicate backing Xoom, which raised $101m in its initial public offering, at a market capitalisation of $509m, as was SVB Capital, the private equity division of Silicon Valley Bank.
Sequoia’s other two exits alongside corporates were India-based education provider TutorVista Global, and cloud infrastructure management company Nimbula.
TutorVista was entirely sold to Sequoia’s syndicate partner, education company Pearson, for an undisclosed sum. TutorVista also received backing from corporate venturing investor Manipal Education and Medical Group.
In Nimbula, Sequoia was a syndicate partner of technology company VMWare, and the business was sold to US-based technology company Oracle.
Sequoia was an investor in the $35m C round for US-based home refurbishment company Houzz alongside Comcast Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based entertainment business.
Sequoia also backed the $20m round for US-based social lending website Prosper, joining a syndicate withfinancial company CompuCredit. In the $17.7m series C round of real-time security analytics business Click Security, Sequoia partnered Citi Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the US-based bank.
Three of Sequoia’s deals with corporates were financial, although like many of the most active VCs, IT was
its most active sector with corporates. Sequoia was closely followed in the most active corporate partner rankings by venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which was one of the syndicate in US-based smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks, which raised $80.75m in its initial public offering. Kleiner was alongside Japan-based technology group Hitachi, US peer EMC and Google Ventures, the corporate venturing
unit of the search engine.
Kleiner was one of the backers of the $80m B round raised by heating start-up Nest, alongside US-based technology company InterTrust and Google Ventures. Kleiner was another member of the Houzz syndicate, mentioned above in respect of Sequoia, while it also invested in two companies that secured strategic backing, US and Canada- based mobile risk management company Fixmo, and Puppet Labs, which received $30m from US-based technology company VMWare in a strategic partnership. In Fixmo, Kleiner is in a syndicate with Samsung Ventures, which invested an undisclosed sum as part of a strategic tie-up, and Motorola Solutions Venture Capital.
Khosla Ventures was the third most active VC with corporates, and partnered US-based technology company
Microsoft in the $75m round raised by Appnexus, and SAP Ventures in the $42m series D round raised by On Deck, a US-based small business loans company.
Accel Partners partnered Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and SAP Ventures in the $22.5m
E round raised by OpenX Software, a US-based provider of advertising revenue products and services. Accel also
invested in the $13.6m extension of US-based clothing retailer Bonobos’ latest $30m round, in which it invested
alongside retailer Nordstrom. It was also in the Prosper syndicate mentioned in respect of Sequoia.
In a telling sign of the growing importance of early-stage firms, two of the most active firms with corporates
were First Round and 500 Startups, which are best know for investing in A rounds and seed rounds respectively.
First Round was in the AppNexus and On Deck syndicates mentioned in respect of Khosla, as well as the
OpenX round mentioned above. First Round was also a backer of US-based micro-credit provider BillFloat,
which raised a $21m B round, in a syndicate alongside EBay’s payments subsidiary PayPal.
500 Startups was joined by Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and Opt, a Japan-based digital advertising
agency, backing Retailigence, a US-based local marketing and e-commerce service, which raised $6.3m in
its series B round.
500 Startups was also an investor in Life360, a US-based provider of safety applications, which raised an undisclosed amount from Germany-based car maker BMW’s corporate venturing unit, I Ventures, as well as in Samba Ads, a Brazil-based online video advertising network, which raised $500,000 from four investors, including Brazil-based Grupo RBS’s holding company, E.Bricks Digital.
Index Ventures was the only non-US firm in the top 10, alongside corporates, reflecting its growing reputation as
one of the hottest European venture firms. Index was in the OpenX syndicate and was a backer of the $20m round raised by fashion retailer FarFetch, which was led by publisher Condé Nast International. Index was also in a syndicate alongside Presidio Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Japan-based conglomerate Sumitomo, backing RightScale, a US-based provider of enterprise cloud management services,
which raised $15.6m in its series D round.
Lightspeed Venture Partners was in the syndicates backing Nest Labs, Bonobos, Click Security and TutorVista, all
mentioned above. It was also a backer of Verizon-backed Skyfire Labs, a US-based mobile video optimisation company, which was sold to Norway-based technology company Opera Software for up to $155m.
DAG Ventures was a backer of Xoom, OpenX and Right- Scale, all mentioned above. It was also alongside SAP
Ventures in the syndicate for US-based marketing software company Marin Software, which raised $108m in its
initial public offering.
DAG was also alongside Nextdoor, a US-based private social network for neighbourhoods, which raised $21.6m in its series B round from a consortium including Google Ventures.
Bessemer invested with Japan-based e-commerce company Rakuten in the $200m round raised by social network
Pinterest. It was also a backer of Life360, mentioned above, as well as Intel Capital-backed Apperian and Discoverly, a US-based social enterprise tool developer, which raised $750,000 in its seed round from a consortium including enterprise software-as-a-service provider Salesforce.
Andreessen Horowitz was also a backer of Pinterest, and invested alongside the Junos Innovation Fund,
a venture fund run by the Juniper Venture Investments, the corporate venturing vehicle for the US based network
equipment company, in the $8m series A for cloud security start-up Illumio.