Late in 2004, Todd, Santo and Paul had this idea of starting a new venture capital firm. They wanted to do something entrepreneurial and build something from scratch. They asked me to join and we ended up calling the firm Spark Capital.
The premise of this new firm was to begin from a consumer perspective and invest in early stage opportunities in media, technology and entertainment.
Over the last almost eight years, our team has expanded to include some exceptional people that are not just my colleagues but my friends.
The truly best part is we are lucky to have the opportunity to work with extraordinary entrepreneurs who are building the things that they want to see in the world. And we want to do everything we can do to help them reach that goal because we want to see these things in the world too.
Today, I’m delighted to announce that we have raised our fourth fund — Spark IV. Spark IV is a $450MM venture capital fund. We will remain a principally early stage firm but also have the ability to invest in category leaders as well. My partner Todd wrote down some of his observations about our new fund here and Sarah Lacy wrote about our new fund here.
We’re excited about what is happening in technology today. More people are connected than ever. Software continues to disrupt massive industries through decreased costs, more transparency and network effects.
We’ll continue to look for these opportunities, always starting with a consumer perspective and in search of common threads across categories including media, finance, education, healthcare, enterprise software and infrastructure.
I am as excited about our purpose today as I was eight years ago when our earliest limited partners took a chance on us. I’m extremely grateful for our investors who believed in us as a startup and for their continued support in our newest fund.
