Sapphire Ventures to Expand European Reach Following Unveiling of Nearly $2bn in New Capital Commitments

Sapphire Ventures, a leading venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies of consequence, has today announced it will significantly expand its European investment activities over the coming year.

As part of this expansion, which follows the opening of the firm’s first European office last year with seven team members, Sapphire is delighted to announce that Annalise Dragic, currently a Principal at the firm, will be promoted to Partner, making her one of Europe’s youngest female VC Partners.

In addition, the firm has announced that veteran investor and Sapphire Ventures Partner, Kevin Diestel, has relocated from Silicon Valley to join the European team and is now based in the London office. As a result, nearly a third of the firm’s enterprise venture-specialized partners are now based out of London. The team will continue to ramp up investment activity into the European and Israeli ecosystem during 2022.

This commitment to European expansion follows Sapphire’s announcement earlier this month of $2 billion in new capital commitments for investments in late-stage technology companies across the US, Europe and Israel. This is the firm’s largest fundraise to date and comes across Sapphire Ventures Fund VI, L.P. (“Fund VI”) and Sapphire Ventures Opportunity Fund III, L.P.  (“Opportunity Fund III”). This fundraise brings the Firm’s to $8.8 billion.^(a)

Sapphire’s European team is a key pillar in Sapphire’s overall ambition to be the preferred partner to visionary teams and funds building companies of consequence. The announcement of these new funds significantly increases the capital available to back ambitious founders across the region.

Sapphire operates out of four major offices with a global team of more than 40 investment and portfolio growth professionals working collaboratively to partner with growth-stage companies in key industry sectors.