Sapphire Ventures describes its mission as backing "companies of consequence" — and with more than $10 billion in firmwide assets under management, over 30 IPOs and more than 80 exits, it has the receipts. The firm was founded in 1996 as the venture capital arm of software giant SAP, spun out as an independent company in 2011 and rebranded to Sapphire in 2014. It now operates from Menlo Park, San Francisco, Austin and London.

Sapphire's direct growth strategy invests with high conviction in a select number of post–product-market-fit companies, overwhelmingly in enterprise AI, data, cybersecurity and B2B software. Current portfolio names include Glean, Cyera, Temporal, LangChain, Clay, Huntress, WorkOS and OneBrief — alongside earlier winners such as DocuSign, Box, Auth0, MuleSoft, Wise, LinkedIn and Alteryx. Its India footprint includes Paytm among its backed companies.

The firm also runs two parallel strategies. Sapphire Partners, launched in 2012, invests as a limited partner in early-stage venture funds across North America, Europe and Israel, co-investing alongside its GPs. Sapphire Sport, launched in 2019, backs companies at the intersection of sports, media and entertainment with backing from groups including Manchester City's City Football Group and investors from the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS. Leadership sits with CEO Nino Marakovic, president Jai Das, COO Abigail Johnson and CFO Cristina Hohlman.

For founders, Sapphire's pitch is operational, not just financial. The firm reports a CEO net-promoter score of 82, more than 360 annual executive talent introductions and more than 360 annual customer and partner introductions, positioning itself as a go-to-market scaling partner for enterprise companies — helping with sales organisation building, executive hiring and enterprise customer access rather than simply writing the cheque.

  • Glean and Cyera — flagship enterprise AI security and search bets
  • Temporal and LangChain — backing the backbone of AI agents
  • DocuSign, MuleSoft, Box — the IPO-era generation
  • Sapphire Partners — LP access into dozens of early-stage funds worldwide

Why it matters for founders

If your enterprise AI company has found product-market fit and needs to scale go-to-market, operations and leadership, Sapphire's $10 billion platform and 360+ annual customer introductions make it one of the strongest growth-stage partners in the segment.