Bessemer Corporation Partners Raises $1.85 Billion Fund (Plus Bessemer's Anti-Portfolio)

From the Wall Street Journal:

One of Silicon Valley’s oldest venture firms has reached a novel milestone.

Bessemer Venture Partners has gathered $1.85 billion for its tenth fund, its largest to date.

Bessemer, which garnered early on stakes inwards LinkedIn Corp., Box Inc. together with Shopify Inc., is taking wages of the excess of upper-case missive of the alphabet inwards Silicon Valley together with doubling downwards on its enterprise together with consumer applied scientific discipline investing. In 2015, it raised $1.6 billion for its previous fund.

The novel fund is i of the latest megafunds raised equally competing venture firms similar Sequoia Capital together with Lightspeed Venture Partners receive got besides stocked upward on billions of dollars to assist startups remain soul longer.

Yet Bessemer itself has seen a publish of portfolio companies become world inwards the yesteryear couplet of years. DocuSign Inc. held its debut before this year, together with Twilio Inc. together with SendGrid Inc. had IPOs inwards 2016 together with 2017, respectively. Earlier this month, Twilio said it has agreed to teach SendGrid.

In improver to the cloud-computing category, Bessemer even together with thus believes inwards consumer investing, despite backing cooking-kit concern Blue Apron Holdings Inc., whose stock has been pummeled well-nigh from the start.

The theater is besides looking to invest inwards technology-enabled existent estate businesses, said Jeremy Levine, a Bessemer partner who invested inwards Pinterest Inc. together with Yelp Inc. He said that Bessemer is willing to write checks ranging from $100,000 to $100 million, depending on the phase together with needs of the startup....MORE

And:

Bessemer Venture Partners Anti-Portfolio

For the in conclusion eight or so years we've visited i of the best finance pages on the internet.
From Bessemer Venture Partners:

Over the course of pedagogy of our history, nosotros did invest inwards a wig company, a french-fry company, together with the Lahaina, Ka'anapali & Pacific Railroad. However, nosotros chose to turn down these investments, each of which nosotros had the opportunity to invest in, together with each of which later blossomed into a tremendously successful company.

Our reasons for passing on these investments varied. In only about cases, nosotros were making a witting human action of generosity to another, younger venture firm, downwards on their luck, who nosotros felt could actually piece of job a billion dollars inwards gains. In other cases, our partners had already run out of spaces on the year's Schedule D together with feared that only about other entry would require them to attach a divide sheet.

Whatever the reason, nosotros would similar to honour these companies -- our "anti-portfolio" -- whose phenomenal success inspires us inwards our ongoing endeavors to construct growing businesses. Or, to position it only about other way: if nosotros had invested inwards whatsoever of these companies, nosotros mightiness non even together with thus hold out working.

	(acquired yesteryear Hewlett Packard) BVP's Felda Hardymon was offered a seat inwards Apollo Computer together with passed. Within a twelvemonth it was trading publically for 17x the toll that he was offered. Apollo was afterward acquired yesteryear HP for an fifty-fifty greater value.
	BVP had the chance to invest inwards pre-IPO secondary stock inwards Apple at a $60M valuation. BVP's Neill Brownstein called it "outrageously expensive."
	In 1994, Gil Schwed pitched his persuasion to BVP's David Cowan, who said that Gil would never teach distribution inwards the US. The adjacent year, Check Point got a huge Dominicus OEM bargain together with sold $25M of firewall software.
	(acquired yesteryear Unilever) Shortly after the commencement viral video* Ethan Kurzweil passed on investing inwards the company. He figured Gillette was leap to launch a competing subscription that would extinguish Dollar Shave’s momentum. He was one-half right: Gilette did launch a subscription, although it to a greater extent than oftentimes than non served to stimulate awareness of Dollar Shave Club. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 few years later Unilever bought Dollar Shave lodge for $1 billion.
	"Stamps? Coins? Comic books? You've GOT to hold out kidding," persuasion Cowan. "No-brainer pass."
	Jeremy Levine spent a weekend at a corporate retreat inwards the summertime of 2004 dodging persistent Harvard undergrad Eduardo Saverin's rabid pitch. Finally, cornered inwards a dejeuner line, Jeremy delivered only about sage advice "Kid, haven't yous heard of Friendster? Move on. It's over!"
	Incredibly, BVP passed on Federal Express vii times....