- Later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm IVP announced recently that it has hired Ajay Vashee as a General Partner
Later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm IVP announced recently that it has hired Ajay Vashee as a General Partner. Vashee is bringing a deep operational and financial experience to this role. And he will invest in high-growth tech companies across a range of markets with an initial focus on SaaS, collaboration software, and subscription-based businesses.
Vashee was most recently CFO of Dropbox where he led the company through its successful IPO and first several years as a public company. And during his tenure, Vashee helped Dropbox scale into one of the world’s largest SaaS businesses — from $45 million to nearly $2 billion in revenue and from 50 million to more than 600 million users.
During that time, the employee base grew 30-fold and the company opened offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific. Vashee had built the finance, corporate development, and real estate organizations from the ground up and under his leadership, Dropbox made close to a dozen acquisitions.
Before Dropbox, Vashee spent 4 years at NEA investing in venture and growth-stage enterprise, consumer, and energy companies. And he began his career in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley. And Vashee graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science.
Since being founded in 1980, IVP invested in over 400 companies and helped take 115 of them go public. IVP is known for being a lead investor in later-stage rounds with equity investments ranging from $10 to $100 million. IVP was a Series B investor in Dropbox and it has also backed innovative companies like CrowdStrike, Datadog, Discord, GitHub, Glossier, Grammarly, HashiCorp, Hopin, Klarna, Slack, Snap, Supercell, TransferWise, Twitter, and UiPath.
KEY QUOTES:
“I’ve had the privilege of working closely with IVP over the past eight years, and I know there’s not a better growth stage team or platform out there. They have an unparalleled track record of success and a deep commitment to their portfolio companies, and I’m thrilled to join the firm,” said Ajay. “The proliferation of productivity tools, tectonic shifts in distributed work, and fundamental re-architecture of the enterprise tech stack make this a really exciting time to be investing. I’m looking forward to leveraging my experience to help visionary entrepreneurs build the next generation of impactful and enduring technology companies.”
— Ajay Vashee
“We first met Ajay nearly a decade ago while he was working in venture at NEA, and have been fortunate to partner with him since our investment in Dropbox. We’ve been incredibly impressed by his ability to navigate the company through each stage of its growth. His experience building and scaling teams, leading large organizations, and managing a transition to the public markets will be a huge asset to both our portfolio companies and prospective investments.”
— Somesh Dash, General Partner at IVP
“Ajay has a unique background that includes years as an operating executive at scale, in addition to venture capital and investment banking experience. We look forward to benefiting from his perspectives as we assess new investment opportunities in high-growth technology companies—and then get to work helping those companies achieve breakout success. I am confident that Ajay will play a big role in the future of the firm, and we are delighted to welcome him.”
— Steve Harrick, General Partner at IVP
“Ajay played a critical role in so many areas of the company over the years. He helped steer Dropbox through some of our biggest milestones—from our early funding rounds to our IPO. He was instrumental in shaping our culture, and was an admired and trusted leader who served as a role model for everyone at the company. I’ll always be grateful to Ajay for everything he did for us.”
— Drew Houston, CEO and Co-Founder of Dropbox
