SAP Ventures, the independent venture capital firm affiliated with SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), announced it has raised more than US$650 million for a new direct investment fund, SAP Ventures Fund II. Taken together with SAP HANA Real Time Fund, a US$405 million fund-of-funds that invests in early stage VC funds, SAP Ventures has added more than US$1 billion in new funds in 12 months. Inclusive of SAP Ventures Fund I, a US$353 million direct investment fund launched in 2011, the firm’s total assets under management increased to more than US$1.4 billion. SAP Ventures also announced it is building out a dedicated 10-person business development team to enable its portfolio companies to easily access and leverage the unmatched capabilities and expertise of one of the world’s largest enterprise ecosystems through its limited partner, SAP AG.
SAP Ventures has seen record results this year, with 12 initial public offering (IPO) and merger and acquisition (M&A) events to date in 2013. Five of its portfolio companies went public, including Control 4, Just Dial, Marin Software, Tremor Video and Violin Memory. Seven of its portfolio companies were acquired, including Aepona, Apriso, Datria, ExactTarget, Ignite, ScaleIO and Voxeo.
SAP Ventures is an integral partner of the innovation drive and intellectual renewal happening at SAP. They are helping us build a broader ecosystem that includes some of the most innovative founders, developers and venture capitalists,” said Dr. Vishal Sikka, member of the Executive Board of SAP AG. “I have been a big supporter of SAP Ventures over the years. We are proud of our commitment to their newest fund and I look forward to supporting them on their journey.
We believe that we represent a new breed of venture capital funds. We are in a unique position of being independent and yet having unparalleled access to one of the world’s largest global ecosystems of enterprise customers and partners,” said Nino Marakovic, CEO and managing director, SAP Ventures. “As a result, we help entrepreneurs tap into proven approaches for customer acquisition and international expansion. They get the best of both worlds — an unmatched mix of independent funding and the relationships of an enterprise powerhouse.
To execute on its strategy, SAP Ventures is building out a dedicated, 10-person internal business development team located in the U.S., Europe and Asia — doubling the firm’s overall staff and bringing the ratio of investors to service-oriented staff to 1:1. This team will work closely with portfolio companies to connect with customers, go-to-market partners and technology and industry experts in the enterprise ecosystem that can help them accelerate growth, scale and success. The goal is to give entrepreneurs and startups access to multiple strategic revenue channels available through SAP Ventures’ limited partner, SAP AG, which counts more than 13,000 partners and 248,000 customers around the world.
In addition, SAP Ventures will continue to build a larger network of portfolio companies and investment experts through its fund of funds, the SAP HANA Real Time Fund. This will exponentially increase the number of connections possible for entrepreneurs in the SAP Ventures community.
For more information, visit www.sapventures.com. Follow SAP Ventures on Twitter at @SAP_Ventures.
