Sapphire Ventures – a global software venture capital firm backing companies of consequence – announced that it is deepening its commitment to AI by investing over $1 billion in AI-powered enterprise technology startups, including those specializing in generative AI. And the commitment builds on Sapphire’s history of supporting and scaling enterprise AI startups. It will focus on all emerging AI tech stack areas, including foundation models, enablers and middleware, and next-gen AI applications.
AI is the next big technological revolution, expected to improve work and daily lives and result in tangible economic benefits. And according to PwC, AI has the potential to contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. A major percentage of that value will be driven by the generative AI market, which could add as much as $4.4 trillion to the economy annually and up to 0.6% of labor productivity growth annually through 2040.
Since being founded, Sapphire has been helping AI-powered enterprise startups like Clari, DataRobot, Moveworks, and ThoughtSpot scale by providing capital, resources, and expertise in executive talent placements, customer and partner introductions, and engineering and go-to-market excellence. And the firm’s AI investment strategy focus is centered around backing B2B software companies that are making AI easily accessible by utilizing data to predict outcomes better. Sapphire also invests heavily in AI and ML companies that improve critical business functions for specific verticals.
Along with the firm’s direct investment strategy, Sapphire’s LP arm Sapphire Partners invests in early-stage software-focused venture firms and emerging managers actively deploying capital in generative AI companies. And through Sapphire Partners, Sapphire has backed hundreds of early-stage AI companies.
To add to Sapphire’s capital commitment, the firm has been building an AI Community as part of Sapphire Communities. And Sapphire Communities is a dedicated platform for portfolio company CEOs and executives, Global 2000 decision-makers, and top private cloud company leaders to make connections, learn new strategies, and accelerate company growth.
Sapphire is also implementing AI across internal workflows and incorporating AI tools across job functions to help drive efficiencies. Finally, Sapphire regularly hosts forums, workshops, and roundtables on AI and GenAI. And these events bring together portfolio companies and SaaS buyers to discover AI opportunities and gain best practices around AI implementation and outcomes.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI represents a profound technology shift, and our $1 billion commitment reflects our conviction in the opportunity. We believe companies are only beginning to see the benefits of AI and GenAI, specifically. Soon, we expect there to be a massive, AI-driven productivity boom that will benefit workers at every level and create value throughout the global economy. We’re eager to back the next wave of enterprise innovators driving this evolution.”
— Nino Marakovic, CEO, Partner and co-founder of Sapphire
“Sapphire has been backing AI startups for more than a decade, so we’ve seen many evolutions of the technology. Most recently, we’ve experienced a huge paradigm shift driven by GenAI and LLMs, which is transforming how we work and live. This next AI wave will replace task-specific models that have dominated the AI landscape to-date. We look forward to partnering with companies that are not only improving existing workflows and software, but are building AI-native solutions that reinvent applications and user experiences.”
— Jai Das, President, Partner and co-founder of Sapphire Ventures
This content was originally published here.
