Sapphire Announces 2021 Partner Promotions in the U.S. and Europe After Landmark Year of Growth

AUSTIN and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sapphire Ventures, LLC ("Sapphire" or the "Firm"), a leading venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies of consequence, today announced the promotions of Annalise Dragic, Nate Leung, Shruti Tournatory, Elizabeth Patterson and Casber Wang to Partner across its Sapphire Ventures, Partners and Portfolio Growth groups. Additionally, the following team members also received promotions: Robert Severo, Shinta Yulia, Jason Morris, Jenny Bavinger, Annie Warner, Jane Lee, and Lacy Balsama. Sapphire recognizes and congratulates these exceptional team members on their accomplishments.

"2021 has been a banner year filled with major milestones for Sapphire that have elevated the firm's scale and reach in unprecedented ways," said Nino Marakovic, CEO, Partner and co-Founder of Sapphire. "Today marks a significant milestone as the entire firm welcomes five dedicated investors and growth operators into the partnership. I am confident that their talent, passion and expertise will help drive Sapphire toward even greater success in the coming years."

Sapphire Ventures U.S.-Based Team Promotions
Casber Wang: Casber joined Sapphire Ventures in 2018 as an Associate. In four years, he has climbed the ranks to Partner on the Sapphire Ventures team. On the team, he primarily focuses on security, enterprise infrastructure, data & analytics and blockchain infrastructure. He is a board observer at JumpCloud, Verbit, Uptycs, Tetrate and Zesty. Prior to Okta's acquisition, he was also a board observer at Auth0. In addition, he works closely with the team at CircleCI, Cypress, Dremio, Privacera, Side, StackHawk and Thoughtspot. Furthermore, he actively worked on investments in Exabeam, Moveworks, Pendo, Outreach, OwnBackup and Zesty. In 2020, Business Insider recognized Casber as an Enterprise VC Rising Star Investor.

Jane Lee: Jane, who is being promoted from Senior Associate to VP, joined Sapphire in 2018 to focus on investments in the SaaS, B2B fintech, ecommerce enablement, design, collaboration, and digital health spaces. She is involved with Sapphire's investments in AvidXchange, BetterUp, Brightfield, Cazoo, Gorgias, Mercury, Podium, SWORD Health, and Unmind.

Sapphire Ventures Europe Team Promotion
"Over the coming year, Sapphire has committed to significantly expanding its European investment activities, further scaling our global footprint," said Andreas Weiskam, Co-Founder and Partner of Sapphire Ventures. "We are pleased to promote and recognize Annalise as our newest partner on the European investment team."

Annalise Dragic: Annalise joined Sapphire Ventures in early 2020. In 2021, she was promoted to Principal, and this year, has been promoted to Partner on the Sapphire Ventures European investment team. Annalise focuses on B2B software and fintech investments across Europe and Israel and is passionate about promoting ESG initiatives and supporting female founders. She is involved in Sapphire's investments in Adverity, Contentful, Currencycloud, GitGuardian, Matillion, Unmind and Yapily, and worked on the firm's investment in Cazoo and Wandera (acquired by Jamf). She also takes an active leadership role mentoring associates in the London office as the firm continues to build out their European presence.

Sapphire Partners Team Promotion
Nate Leung: Nate joined Sapphire in 2019. In just a few years, he has been promoted to Partner on the Sapphire Partners team. In his role, he supports the team's investments in early-stage venture capital funds and is passionate about partnering with established and emerging venture fund managers and supporting aspiring GPs. In 2021, Nate took a leadership role in Sapphire Partners' #OpenLP initiative to demystify the LP perspective in the venture ecosystem and spearheaded the launch of the #OpenLP podcast series. He also supports Sapphire Partners' direct co-investing program to deepen Sapphire's partnerships with GPs.

"We are fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with exceptional venture fund managers, and Nate has been an instrumental and strategic partner to our portfolio," said Beezer Clarkson, Partner and Head of Sapphire Partners.

Portfolio Growth Team Promotions
The promotions underscore Sapphire's commitment to current and future portfolio companies and founders as the team focuses on driving value and maximum impact when helping portfolio companies along their journeys.

Today, Sapphire is thrilled to celebrate the achievements of two Portfolio Growth leaders at Sapphire — Shruti Tournatory and Elizabeth Patterson — and announce their promotions. As Portfolio Growth partners, they are deeply committed to helping founders and CEOs on their road to building companies of consequence.

• Shruti Tournatory: Shruti joined Sapphire in 2014. She has since been leading Sapphire's business development and go-to-market team globally with a focus on revenue acceleration for Sapphire's portfolio companies. Shruti is responsible leading for the firm's CxO network, developing the annual CIO Innovation Index industry benchmark and has also established Sapphire's initial Centers of Excellence (CoEs) delivering operator communities, playbooks, and scaling resources for the portfolio on topics such as Engineering, Go-to-Market and International Expansion.
  
  
• Elizabeth Patterson: Elizabeth joined Sapphire in 2018. Since then, she has been leading Sapphire's Talent team who work closely with CEOs and executives to help them to build, develop and retain world class teams and boards of directors. She works closely with Sapphire's portfolio companies to understand their strategic talent needs and matches them with resources from within Sapphire's network to help companies grow and optimize business outcomes. Elizabeth also partners with Sapphire portfolio companies to diversify their boards of directors and is honored to be an Advisor to Black Women on Boards.
  
  
• Jenny Bavinger: Jenny joined Sapphire in 2020 as Director of Marketing and is now being promoted to Senior Director of Marketing. A storyteller at heart, she has nearly 15 years of B2B tech communications and marketing experience, which she leverages to drive full-stack marketing and PR for the firm's Sapphire Ventures and Portfolio Growth teams. She is also active in supporting Sapphire's portfolio companies on marketing and communications strategy.
  
  
• Annie Warner: Annie joined Sapphire as Manager of Business Development in 2020 and is now being promoted to Director of Business Development. She collaborates in managing Sapphire's network of Global 2000 CXOs. This network is the foundation for Sapphire's CIO Innovation Index, an ongoing study of CIO engagement with venture-backed startups, as well as Sapphire's annual Vision Summit for enterprise CxOs and startup CEOs.

Operations Team Promotions

• Robert Severo: Robert joined Sapphire in 2018 and is now being promoted to VP of Risk & Analytics, in addition to his current role as Chief Compliance Officer. Robert helps lead Sapphire's compliance and risk management efforts firmwide.
  
  
• Shinta Yulia: Shinta joined Sapphire in 2020 as Controller and is now being promoted to Senior Controller (Global). Shinta is responsible for all accounting and financial reporting aspects at Sapphire.
  
  
• Jason Morris: Jason joined Sapphire in 2020 as Director, Analytics and Investor Relations and is now transitioning to a new dedicated IR role in Office of the CEO. Jason helps to support Sapphire Ventures' investor relations and portfolio analytics efforts.
  
  
• Lacy Balsama: Lacy joined Sapphire in 2018 as an Executive Assistant. With this recent promotion, she has transitioned to a new HR Generalist role. Lacy will continue to handle all on-boarding and off-boarding for the firm, as well as recruiting for all support staff.

For more information about the Sapphire team, visit: https://sapphireventures.com/team/ 

About Sapphire

Sapphire is a leading global technology-focused venture capital firm with more than $8.8 billion in AUM and team members across Austin, London, New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco. For more than two decades, Sapphire has partnered with visionary management teams and venture funds to help scale companies of consequence. Since its founding, Sapphire has invested in more than 170 companies globally ^(b) resulting in more than 30 IPOs and 45 acquisitions. ^(c) The firm's investment strategies — Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners and Sapphire Sport — are focused on scaling companies and venture funds, elevating them to become category leaders. Sapphire's Portfolio Growth team of experienced operators delivers a strategic blend of value-add services, tools and resources designed to support portfolio company leaders as they scale. To learn more about Sapphire, visit: https://sapphireventures.com.

(a) "AUM" — Assets Under Management (AUM) represents Sapphire's Regulatory Assets Under Management as of 12/31/2020 per ADV filed March 2021 as well as new commitments made to Sapphire Funds during calendar year 2021.

(b) Figures represent all Sapphire direct growth investments made since the firm's inception in 2011 to November 2021.

(c) Figures represent all Sapphire direct growth investments that have had an IPO or public listing from the firm's inception in 2011 to November 2021. The specific companies identified may not be representative of all of Sapphire's investments and no assumption should be made that the investments identified were or will be profitable. A complete alphabetical list of Sapphire's investments made by its direct growth investing funds is available here. 

Disclaimer - Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC ("Sapphire"). Sapphire does not provide investment advice and is not registered in the United Kingdom. Information provided reflects Sapphires' views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Nothing contained in this article may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Companies mentioned in this article are a representative sample of portfolio companies in which Sapphire has invested in which the author believes such companies fit the objective criteria stated in commentary, which do not reflect all investments made by Sapphire. A complete alphabetical list of Sapphires' investments made by its direct growth and sports investing strategies is available here. Various statements made by third party guests about Sapphire relate to the nature and type of management services provided by Sapphire and do not constitute testimonials to Sapphires' investment advisory services and no inference to the contrary should be made. Sapphire does not solicit or make its services available to the public and none of the funds are currently open to new investors. While the Sapphire has used reasonable efforts to obtain information from reliable sources, we make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of third-party information presented herein, which is subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Media Contact: 
Michael Stolyar
[email protected]

SOURCE Sapphire Ventures