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Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States, responsible for early-stage funding startups of consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors. It has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.[1]
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Venture capital |
Founded | 2005; 19 years ago (2005) |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States, New York, NY, United States and Boston, Massachusetts |
Key people | Alex Finkelstein, Nabeel Hyatt, Jeremy Philips, Santo Politi, Yasmin Razavi, Will Reed, Bijan Sabet, Kevin Thau |
Products | Investments |
Website | sparkcapital |
Spark Capital was launched in 2005 by Paul Conway, Santo Politi, and Todd Dagres.[1][2][3] They have raised six early-stage funds and three growth funds.
Spark Capital also raised three growth funds.
Spark Capital was founded in 2005 by Bijan Sabet, Paul Conway, Santo Politi, and Todd Dagres. Other people who have joined the company since its inception include Kevin Thau, Jeremy Philips, Alex Finkelstein, Yasmin Razavi, and Nabeel Hyatt.[3] The company consists of approximately 11–50 employees.[8]
According to a Forbes article, Spark Capital's success can be attributed to maintaining focus specifically on technology startups in the media, entertainment, and mobile sectors. Further, information-sharing within the company was organized so that all partners can work with a portfolio company, not just the partner assigned to that company.[2]
Spark Capital has been known for co-investing with Union Square Ventures. In fact, many of Spark Capital's top picks, including Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare, were made via partner Bijan Sabet and were joint investments with Union Square Ventures, made by partner Fred Wilson.[9][10][11][12] Other firms with which Spark frequently co-invests include SV Angel, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and First Round Capital.[9]
Sabet says that Spark Capital's portfolio companies do not use non-compete agreements, which he says have been a key factor in limiting startup growth in New York and Boston.[13]
Bijan Sabet, the partner at Spark Capital, invested in Twitter's second (Series B) round in June 2008, along with Jeff Bezos and additional investments from past investors such as Fred WilsonofUnion Square Ventures, and Sabet also accepted a board seat at Twitter.[14] According to Hatching Twitter, Sabet and Wilson played a crucial role in facilitating smooth leadership changes at Twitter in October 2008 and later October 2010—ousting Jack Dorsey to install Evan Williams in 2008 and ousting Williams to install Dick Costolo in 2010.[15]
In November 2013, shortly after Twitter's IPO, Sabet wrote a blog post expressing his gratitude to Twitter, both as an investor and as a user of the service.[16]AForbes article about Spark Capital quoted Sabet as attributing Spark Capital's success to the partners themselves' use of the products of the companies they invested in (such as Twitter) enabling them to better understand the companies from the perspective of consumers.[2]
Spark Capital was one of the early investors in Tumblr, where they co-invested with Union Square Ventures, paying the same amount for the same share, with Bijan Sabet as the assigned partner from Spark Capital.[17][18] Following the sale of TumblrtoYahoo! for $1.1 billion, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures each took home $192 million from the deal.[17][19][20]
Spark capital invested in Oculus VR in both Series A and Series B funding rounds, which was subsequently sold to Facebook for an estimated $2 billion.[21] The company's General Partner Santo Politi joined the board of directors.[citation needed]
Spark Capital invested in Cruise in the Series A funding round, and the company's General Partner Nabeel Hyatt joined the board of directors.[22]
Spark Capital invested in Series D funding rounds of a cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase.[23]
Spark Capital invested in multiple funding rounds of a gamer chat tool Discord, with General Partner Nabeel Hyatt joining the board as an observer.[24][25]
Spark Capital invested in multiple funding rounds of a social trading and multi-asset brokerage company eToro,[26] and led its $8.3 million funding round in January 2011[27][28] and $15 million round in March 2012.[29] The company's General Partner Santo Politi joined the board of directors.[citation needed]
In December 2016, Spark Capital led a series B funding round for Pendo, a software company.[30] This was in collaboration with Salesforce Ventures, Core Capital Partners, Battery Ventures, IDEA Fund Partners, and Contour Venture Partners. The company's General Partner Megan Quinn joined the board of directors.[31]
Spark Capital has invested in multiple rounds of technology-driven commerce company Perch.[32]
Spark Capital led a Series B funding round for Niantic, a software development company that developed augmented reality mobile games Pokémon Go and Ingress in November 2017. As part of the $200 million funding deal, Spark's partner Megan Quinn joined Niantic's board.[33]
Spark Capital invested in multiple funding rounds of a camera and social media startup Snap (owner of Snapchat).[34]