- Menlo Ventures announced it has hired Jean-Paul (“JP”) Sanday as a partner at the venture firm. Before joining Menlo, Sanday was a VP at Summit Partners.
Jean-Paul Sanday (known as JP) is joining Menlo Ventures as a partner. Prior to joining Menlo, Sanday was a vice president at Summit Partners. At Menlo, JP will be overseeing Menlo Ventures’ $500 million Inflection Fund — which was announced six months ago.
Sanday’s board and investment experience at Summit included Smartsheet, Clearwater Analytics (acquired by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe), Ascentis, and Teaching Strategies. And Sanday previously served as VP of Growth at CreativeLive and VP of Growth at Kiwi. Plus he co-founded a mobile ad network focused on driving installs for app developers and worked as a Product Manager at Amazon.
“We’re excited to add J.P. to the team! He’s a great addition and comes highly recommended by everyone he’s ever worked with both on the operating side and as an investor. His experience, twice as an investor at leading growth firm Summit Partners, and twice as head of growth in start-up operating roles, give him a differentiated perspective which will be incredibly valuable to entrepreneurs he partners with,” said Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy. “We’re excited about the early results of our inflection strategy, and J.P. is the ideal candidate to help us take things to the next level!”
The Inflection Fund invests in companies at the early breakout point between venture and late-stage growth for companies that are hitting between $5 million and $15 million in ARR. From this fund, Menlo Ventures is making investments of between $20 and $40 million. With that amount of funding, companies will be able to make meaningful team hires and accelerate them to scalable hypergrowth. Menlo is also known for making early-stage investments (from seed through Series A and early Series B) from their $450 million Venture Fund.
Ever since Menlo launched the Inflection Fund in February, Menlo led three financing rounds with an average investment of $20 million in rounds that averaged $25 million. These companies include Hover, Benchling, and one still not public.
“It’s a great time to join Menlo Ventures. The firm is doing incredibly well with IPO’s like Uber and Roku and investments in several of the next big companies in Silicon Valley, such as Carta, Chime, and Harness,” added Sanday. “Menlo has done a great job identifying companies at their early stage of growth, while the vast majority of traditional growth funds have moved much later stage. There is a huge opportunity in this segment of the market. I’m excited to build on this foundation working with the team and great entrepreneurs to build break out companies.”
Beside Murphy, some of Menlo Ventures’ executives include Croom Beatty (principal), Shawn Carolan (partner), Venky Ganesan (partner), Naomi Pilosof Ionita (partner), Mark Siegel (managing director), Steve Sloane (partner), Tyler Sosin (partner), Greg Yap (partner), Doug Carlisle (Managing Director and partner emeritus), John Jarve (partner emeritus), H. DuBose Montgomery (founder and partner emeritus), and Avery More (venture partner).
