Spark Capital

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Spark Capital
Private
Industry Private equity
Founded 2005
Headquarters Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Products Venture capital
Website sparkcapital.com

Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States, with branches in Boston, New York, and San Francisco.[1] Its portfolio includes Twitter (the microblogging service that had an IPO in 2013), Tumblr (that was sold to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion USD in 2013), Foursquare, Warby Parker, Stack Exchange, Upworthy, Academia.edu, and many other companies.[2][3][4]

History

Spark Capital was launched in 2005 by Alex Finkelstein, Bijan Sabet, Paul Conway, Santo Politi, and Todd Dagres.[3][4][5] They have had five fundraising rounds.

  • The first fund, for $265 million, was raised in 2005.[3][4]
  • The second fund, for $360 million, was raised in 2008.[3][4]
  • The third fund, for $360 million, was raised in 2010.[3][4]
  • The fourth round, for $450 million, was raised in 2013 and its closure was announced in late February.[4] Partner Bijan Sabet told TechCrunch that this brought Spark Capital's money under management to $1.4 billion.[4]
  • The fifth round, for $375 million, was raised in 2014.[6]

Team

Spark Capital was founded in 2005 by Alex Finkelstein, Bijan Sabet, Paul Conway, Santo Politi, and Todd Dagres. Other people who have joined the company since its inception include Andrew Parker, Danya Cheskis-Gold, Mo Koyfman, and Nabeel Hyatt.[5]

Investment approach

According to a Forbes article, Spark Capital's success can be attributed to maintaining focus specifically on technology startups in the media, entertainment, and mobile sectors. Further, information-sharing within the company was organized so that all partners can work with a portfolio company, not just the partner assigned to that company.[3]

Spark Capital has been known for co-investing with Union Square Ventures. In fact, many of Spark Capital's top picks, including Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare, were made via partner Bijan Sabet and were joint investments with Union Square Ventures, made by partner Fred Wilson.[7][8][9][10] Other firms with which Spark frequently co-invests include SV Angel, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and First Round Capital.[7]

Sabet says that Spark Capital's portfolio companies do not use non-compete agreements, which he says have been a key factor in limiting startup growth in New York and Boston.[11]

Companies

Twitter

Bijan Sabet, Founding Partner at Spark Capital, invested in Twitter's second (Series B) round in June 2008, along with Jeff Bezos and additional investments from past investors such as Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, and Sabet also accepted a board seat at Twitter.[12] According to Hatching Twitter, Sabet and Fred Wilson played a crucial role in facilitating smooth leadership changes at Twitter in October 2008 and later October 2010—ousting Jack Dorsey to install Evan Williams in 2008, and ousting Williams to install Dick Costolo in 2010.[13]

In November 2013, shortly after Twitter's IPO, Sabet wrote a blog post expressing his gratitude to Twitter, both as an investor and as a user of the service.[14] A Forbes article about Spark Capital quoted Sabet as attributing Spark Capital's success to the fact that the partners themselves used the products of the companies they invested in (such as Twitter) enabling them to better understand the companies from the perspective of consumers.[3]

Tumblr

Spark Capital was one of the early investors in Tumblr, where they co-invested with Union Square Ventures, paying the same amount for the same share, with Bijan Sabet as the assigned partner from Spark Capital.[15][16] Following the sale of Tumblr to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion USD, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures each took home $192 million from the deal.[15][17][18]

Foursquare

Spark Capital has invested in multiple rounds of location-based social networking company Foursquare, starting in June 2011.[19][20]

Behalf

Spark capital invested in Behalf in both Series A and Series B funding rounds.[21]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/behalf#/entity

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Spark_Capital&oldid=711562151"