- Jackson Square Ventures announced that it raised $193 million for its third and largest fund
Jackson Square Ventures (JSV) has announced that it raised $193 million for its third and largest fund. This fund was raised on the heels of several successful exits for JSV such as DocuSign (IPO), UpWork (IPO), and Cornershop (acquired by Uber). Some of JSV’s other portfolio companies include Strava, OfferUp, Seismic, and Alto Pharmacy. Jackson Square Ventures spun out of Sigma Partners.
With $193 million raised, it was 30% over the fund target of $150 million and 60% greater than its prior two funds. JSV also has a high hit-rate with 6 out of 59 core investments achieving a $1 billion exit and/or valuation. And it has a low loss-rate at about 21% compared to the industry average of 50%. The partners at JSV have collectively generated $2.6 billion in value.
JSV III will be managed the same three MDs who invested in JSV II: Pete Solvik (former Cisco CIO), Greg Gretsch (3x entrepreneur), and Josh Breinlinger (part of the founding team at oDesk). And Victor Echevarria was promoted to partner.
“Anti-hype investments are made in companies with great teams (table stakes), attacking massive (sometimes “boring”) markets, with well-established technology (in the trough), and relatively weak (non-innovating) incumbents. In many cases, they applied new business models enabled by technology to go after incumbent companies or industries. They were not media darlings when we invested,” wrote Breinlinger in a blog post. “The Anti-Hype Ethos is what makes Jackson Square Ventures different. Our investment decisions are grounded in customer adoption and business fundamentals, combined with clear, well-understood technology and markets. It involves investing in industries that may be overlooked by others or written off as uninteresting. And of course, Anti-Hype investing is frequently done outside of SF Bay Area—half our deals are outside of Silicon Valley and we frequently invest in first-time founders.”
