Sapphire Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Sapphire Ventures is an enterprise AI venture capital firm that partners with expansion-stage, enterprise software companies it believes can become category leaders. Originally founded in 1996 as the corporate venture arm of SAP, the firm spun out as an independent entity in 2011 and rebranded as Sapphire Ventures in 2014. Since then it has grown assets under management from roughly $1.4B to over $10B. The firm's public positioning centers on artificial intelligence as the dominant investment theme of the current decade, with recent thesis essays covering reinforcement learning environments for AI agents, vertical AI markets, and AI's impact on the drug development stack. Sapphire has stated it has deployed $2.4B across 60 AI companies over the past decade and has committed an additional $1B to the sector going forward.
Sector Focus
Sapphire's portfolio spans enterprise software broadly, with concentrated exposure to:
- Developer tools and infrastructure (Grafana Labs, CircleCI, Cypress, Temporal, JFrog, Kong, WorkOS)
- Cybersecurity and data security (Netskope, Cohesity, Exabeam, Cyera, GitGuardian, Huntress, StackHawk)
- Fintech and payments (Wise, Square, Chargebee, TaxBit, Rain, Upvest, Mercury)
- Data, analytics, and AI/ML infrastructure (Alteryx, ThoughtSpot, DataRobot, Weights & Biases, Glean, LangChain, Baseten)
- HR tech and future of work (Degreed, Culture Amp, BetterUp, Gem, Paradox)
- Healthcare and life sciences technology (Livongo, Medable, SWORD Health, Verse Medical)
- Marketing and adtech (Braze, Criteo, Attentive, Integral Ad Science)
Stage Focus
Sapphire Ventures invests primarily at the expansion stage, roughly Series B through pre-IPO/growth rounds, backing companies that already have product-market fit and are scaling go-to-market. It is distinct from Sapphire Partners, the firm's fund-of-funds arm that makes LP commitments into early-stage VC funds (that team is in the process of transitioning to LGT Capital Partners as of April 2026), and Sapphire Sport, a separate sports/entertainment technology strategy.
Check Size
Exact check-size ranges are not publicly disclosed. Observed round sizes the firm has led or co-led in 2026 range from $75M (Bretton AI Series B) to $300M (Temporal Series D), consistent with a growth-stage investor writing large checks into expansion rounds alongside other institutional investors.
Lead Tendency
Sapphire frequently leads or co-leads the rounds it participates in. Of its four most recent publicized 2026 investments, it led Bretton AI's Series B, led Upvest's $125M financing, and co-led Onebrief's $200M Series D alongside Battery Ventures.
Recent Activity
Sapphire has been actively deploying through 2026:
- June 2026: Investment in Current (challenger bank)
- March 2026: Led Upvest's $125M financing ($90M equity + $35M debt), an expansion of a prior Series C co-lead
- February 2026: Backed Temporal's $300M Series D and led Bretton AI's $75M Series B
- January 2026: Co-led Onebrief's $200M Series D alongside Battery Ventures
The firm published its "2025 Year in Review" and "2026 Midyear Review" strategy memos, and hosted 40+ networking events including its 4th Annual Hypergrowth Engineering Summit in 2025.
Portfolio Highlights
Sapphire has backed 250+ companies over its history, with more than 70 exits including roughly 30 IPOs and 45+ acquisitions. Notable IPOs include LinkedIn, DocuSign, Box, Braze, Square, Wise, Fitbit, monday.com, Nutanix, JFrog, and Sumo Logic. Notable acquisitions include MuleSoft and Looker (both by Salesforce/Google respectively), Auth0 (Okta), Segment (Twilio), Apigee (Google Cloud), and Contentful (Salesforce, 2026). Current high-growth private holdings span AI infrastructure (Glean, LangChain, Weights & Biases, Temporal, Baseten), security (Cohesity, Netskope, Cyera), and fintech (Mercury, Chargebee, Upvest).
Team
Sapphire operates with a large, structured investment and operating team led by co-founders Nino Marakovic (Partner, CEO) and Jai Das (Partner, President). The broader partnership includes:
- Nino Marakovic, Partner & CEO
- Jai Das, Partner & President
- Rajeev Dham, Partner
- Cathy Gao, Partner
- Anders Ranum, Partner
- Andreas Weiskam, Partner
- Steve Abbott, Partner, Capital Markets
- Rami Branitzky, Partner
- Xiaoping Feng, PhD, Partner, Head of Data & AI
- Kevin Burke, Partner, Strategy
The firm also maintains a dedicated Platform team of Operating Partners (David Hartwig, Paul Levine, Casber Wang, Elizabeth Patterson) who support portfolio companies with go-to-market scaling, talent, and executive network access — facilitating 500+ annual customer, partner, and executive introductions across a network of 9,000+ executives at 5,000+ companies.
Decision Process
With a partnership of 8+ investing partners plus principals, VPs, and associates evaluating deals, Sapphire operates on a partnership/investment-committee model typical of large growth-stage funds, rather than a solo-GP structure.
Founder Preferences
Sapphire looks for expansion-stage, enterprise software founders with demonstrated product-market fit who are ready to scale go-to-market operations. The firm's heavy investment in its Platform team signals a preference for founders who will actively leverage operational support (executive hiring, GTM strategy, customer/partner network access) rather than purely passive capital.
Geographic Focus
Sapphire Ventures maintains offices in San Francisco (headquarters, 439 Bryant Street), Menlo Park, Austin, and London, reflecting a primary focus on North America with a growing European presence (recent European investments include Upvest, a German/UK open banking infrastructure company).