IVP 2020 in Review – Ten New Investments and a Growing Team for Investing in and Serving High Growth Technology Companies

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--IVP, a premier later-stage and growth equity firm, today shared a summary of key milestones for the last 12 months, a memorable year that despite many challenges saw the technology industry emerge stronger than ever. During 2020, IVP announced ten new investments as the firm continues to invest actively in high growth enterprise and consumer technology companies. Throughout the year, the firm’s portfolio companies raised over $4 billion in follow-on financings. Despite the macro backdrop in 2020, the firm reached a milestone of 115 portfolio company IPOs with Casper and Sumo Logic entering the public markets. Hims & Hers is in the process of becoming publicly traded via a SPAC merger. In addition, IVP had three significant M&A transactions, including acquisitions of Expanse, Personal Capital, and the second-largest software acquisition of all time, Slack.

2020 marked the 40^th anniversary of IVP, which was one of the first venture capital firms on Sand Hill Road. Since its inception in 1980, IVP has backed innovative companies like CrowdStrike, Datadog, Klarna, Netflix, Seagate, Slack, Snap, Supercell, Twitter, and UiPath. IVP remains committed to its focused strategy of supporting innovation at the growth stage and partnering closely with exceptional management teams. Listed below are a few highlights from this year.

New Investments Announced in 2020:

• Aiven, an open-source cloud database software platform
• CircleCI, a continuous integration and delivery platform
• Curology, a personal care provider with custom, prescription skincare
• H1, a global platform for the healthcare industry
• Hopin, an enterprise-scale live virtual events software platform
• Lyra, a tech-enabled mental health platform
• Robinhood, a retail investment platform
• Supermetrics, a simplified data access platform for business analysts
• Whisper, a software-defined hearing aid technology
• WHOOP, a wearable for human performance

Large Follow-On Rounds in 2020:

• Attentive, a personalized mobile messaging SaaS platform for brands, raised $340 million
• Brex, the financial OS for the next generation of business, raised $150 million
• Discord, an all-in-one voice and text chat platform, raised $100 million
• Eightfold.ai, the creator of the first Talent Intelligence platform, raised $125 million
• HashiCorp, a cloud infrastructure automation platform, raised $175 million
• Hopin, an enterprise-scale live virtual events software platform, raised $125 million
• Klarna, the global disruptor of payments with smooth retail services, raised $850 million
• Lime, a micro-mobility provider, raised $170 million
• Lyra, a tech-enabled mental health platform, raised $110 million
• MasterClass, the online education company, raised $100 million
• Podium, a customer communication platform for local businesses, raised $125 million
• Robinhood, a retail investment platform, raised $660 million
• Skydio, a robotics company that makes self-navigating drones, raised $100 million
• Tanium, the platform for endpoint management and security, raised $200 million
• TransferWise, the best way to send money abroad, raised $319 million
• UiPath, the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software company, raised $225 million

IPOs in 2020:

• Sumo Logic (SUMO), the continuous intelligence platform for DevSecOps, went public in September. IVP made its initial investment in May 2015. Sumo Logic was the 115^th company from IVP’s portfolio to go public.
• Casper (CSPR), the global sleep company, went public in February. IVP made its initial investment in June 2015.

SPACs in 2020:

• Hims & Hers, a multi-specialty telehealth platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals, entered into a definitive merger agreement in October with Oaktree Acquisition Corp. to become publicly traded. IVP made its initial investment in January 2018.

Significant M&A Exits in 2020:

• Slack, the most innovative enterprise communications platform, entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Salesforce in December. This transaction, at an enterprise value of $27.7 billion, marks the second largest-ever software acquisition. Slack debuted on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “WORK” in June 2019. IVP made its initial investment in April 2015.
• Expanse, a leader in attack surface management, entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Palo Alto Networks in November. IVP made its initial investment in June 2017.
• Personal Capital, a leader in digital wealth management, was acquired by Empower Retirement in June. IVP made its initial investment in June 2010.

Industry Recognition

In 2020, IVP was named among the Top 25 firms on The CB Insights Smart Money List. Venture Capital Journal included IVP on their inaugural VCJ 50 List ranking the largest venture fundraisers over the past five years, and Preqin named IVP as a top firm in private equity in their 2020 Global Private Equity Report.

Jules Maltz was named to the prestigious Forbes Midas List of the 100 Best Venture Capitalists, his third consecutive time. Eric Liaw and Tom Loverro were named to the 2020 GrowthCap’s Top 25 Software Investors List, honored to be included among the most exceptional private capital investors who have demonstrated deep software sector expertise. In addition, Somesh Dash and Tom Loverro were named to the 2020 GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors List. Alex Lim was named on the Venture Capital Journal’s debut ranking of the 40 Rising Stars Under 40. Business Insider recognized Parsa Saljoughian among the 25 top young fintech investors, and Todays Magazine ranked him sixth on the Powerful Iranian-Americans in Silicon Valley List. Jason Kong was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capital List.

IVP has 21 investors focused on identifying later-stage growth companies in the consumer and enterprise sectors. IVP is one of the top performing firms in the venture capital industry, typically serving as a lead investor in later-stage rounds with equity investments ranging from $10 to $100 million.

Promotions and New Hires

Throughout its history, IVP has helped hundreds of businesses scale and achieve long-term value. The IVP partnership works together closely with a consistent focus on later-stage investing.

IVP bolstered its team with several important new hires and promotions during the year. IVP announced in November that Ajay Vashee, former Dropbox CFO, is joining the firm as a General Partner. Ajay brings deep operational and financial experience to the role and will invest in high growth technology companies across a range of markets, with an initial focus on SaaS, collaboration software, and subscription businesses. IVP also announced the promotions of Alex Lim, Michael Miao, and Jake Storm. These well-deserved promotions are reflective of their accomplishments and the firm’s continued commitment to growing and maintaining an investment team best equipped to serve hypergrowth companies. In addition, Army Tunjaicon joined IVP’s team, bringing additional investment banking experience to the firm.

In 2021, IVP will continue its efforts to drive existing portfolio companies to achieve success at scale while pursuing additional investments in rapidly-growing technology companies.

Click here for the 2020 IVP Summary Infographic

About IVP

With $7 billion of committed capital, IVP is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 400 companies with 115 IPOs. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments. IVP investments include such notable companies as AppDynamics (CSCO), Coinbase, Compass, CrowdStrike (CRWD), Datadog (DDOG), Discord, Dropbox (DBX), GitHub (MSFT), Glossier, Grammarly, HashiCorp, Hims & Hers, HomeAway (AWAY), Hopin, Klarna, LegalZoom, Looker (GOOGL), Marketo (MKTO), MasterClass, Mindbody (Vista), MuleSoft (CRM), Netflix (NFLX), Personal Capital (Empower), Podium, Rubrik, Slack (WORK), Snap (SNAP), Supercell (Tencent), Tanium, TransferWise, Twitter (TWTR), UiPath, Yext (YEXT), ZenDesk (ZEN), ZipRecruiter, and Zynga (ZNGA). For more information, visit https://www.ivp.com/ or follow IVP on Twitter: @ivp.