Shasta Ventures

Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment firm located in Silicon Valley that invests in enterprise and technology consumer startups.[1][2] It is located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.[3]

Shasta Ventures
IndustryVenture capital
Founded2004
FounderRob Coneybeer, Ravi Mohan
HeadquartersMenlo Park, California
Websiteshastaventures.com

Funds

Shasta's second fund of US$250 million included Nest Labs, which almost all by itself repaid the entire fund when it was sold to Google for $3.2 billion.[4] Shasta's third fund of $265 million was announced in September 2011.[5] The fourth fund, of $300 million, was announced in June 2014.[6]

Investment philosophy

Shasta was originally focused on companies in the consumer technology space, with then managing director Tod Francis calling Mint.com a "classic Shasta" investment in September 2011.[5]

In September 2013, Rob Coneybeer of Shasta, the new managing director, said that he was betting big on hardware startups, citing Moore's Law-style continued performance improvements making opportunities for new hardware possible.[7]

Companies

Mint.com

Shasta Ventures was an early investor in Mint.com, an online personal finance management service that was bought in September 2009 by financial software company Intuit for US$170 million in cash.[8] An article by Alexia Tsotsis for TechCrunch quoted Shasta's managing director Tod Francis as using the phrase "Classic Shasta" to describe Shasta's investment in Mint.com.[5]

Nest Labs

Shasta Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers were the only investors in the Series A round for Nest Labs (the home automation company) in September 2010. When Google later bought Nest Labs for US$3.2 billion in January 2014, Shasta had a net gain of about $200 million, enough to pay out "almost all" of the $250 million Shasta II fund.[4][9][10][11]

Other investments

Shasta has invested in a number of other companies[12] such as Anaplan, Brandcast,[13] Entelo,[14] Leanplum, Nextdoor,[15] Lithium Technologies,[16] Logoworks,[17] Zuora,[18] Tally Technologies,[19][20][21] Spiceworks,[22] Stealth Security, and VoloMetrix.[23]

Controversy

In August 2019 partner Doug Pepper left the firm, potentially triggering a "key-man" event[24]

gollark: Something something multi-track drifting.
gollark: I see.
gollark: Idea: a trolley is going on a track toward Macron. You can divert it to go onto a track with Internet Explorer and also 2618 innocent people. What do?
gollark: What if you have a runaway trolley which is heading toward a track with a number of people equal in size to the set of the real numbers, but which can be diverted to a track with aleph_1 people on it instead?
gollark: Good idea.

References
  1. "About Us". Shasta Ventures. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  2. "Shasta Ventures: Crunchbase Profile". CrunchBase. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  3. "Contact Us". Shasta Ventures. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  4. Constine, Josh (January 13, 2014). "Who Gets Rich From Google Buying Nest? Kleiner Returns 20X On $20M, Shasta Nets ~$200M". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  5. Tsotsis, Alexia (September 21, 2011). "Shasta Ventures Closes New $265 Million III Fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  6. Rusli, Evelyn. "Shasta Ventures Sticks to Basics With New $300 Million Fund". Wall Street Journal.
  7. Lawler, Ryan (September 9, 2013). "Shasta Ventures' Rob Coneybeer On Why He's Betting Big On Hardware Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  8. Sanati, Cyrus (September 14, 2009). "Intuit to Buy Personal Finance Site Mint.com". New York Times (DealBook blog). Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  9. Oreskovic, Alexei; Gupta, Poornima (January 14, 2014). "Kleiner Perkins, Shasta Ventures make about 20x their money on Nest Labs – Reuters". PEHub. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  10. "For Nest Investor Shasta Ventures, Persistence Pays". StrictlyVC. January 13, 2014. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  11. "Nest (company profile)". Shasta Ventures. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  12. "Companies". Shasta Ventures. Retrieved October 4, 2016.
  13. Brandcast. "TPG Growth / Affinity Group, Marc Benioff, and Shasta Ventures Invest in Brandcast". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  14. "Overview Entelo". crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  15. Gannes, Liz (October 26, 2011). "Nextdoor Launches Private Social Networks for Neighborhoods". AllThingsD. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  16. Lawler, Ryan (January 5, 2012). "Lithium Technologies raises $53.4 million from NEA & SAP Ventures". GigaOm. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  17. "Overview Logoworks". chrunchbase. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  18. Taulli, Tom (September 19, 2013). "Zuora: Ushering In The Subscription Economy". Forbes. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  19. Kolodny, Lora. "Tally raises $15 million for app to make credit cards less expensive, easier to manage". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
  20. Lieber, Ron (2016-05-19). "A Service to Pay Off High-Interest Credit Cards, but a Bad Time to Start". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
  21. "San Francisco-based credit card management app Tally raises $15 million - Silicon Valley Business Journal". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
  22. "Shasta Ventures pools a $200M fund, invests with Google Ventures..." Reuters. 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  23. "Overview NoloMetrix". crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-03-13.
  24. Axios. "Top partner unexpectedly departs VC firm Shasta Ventures". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
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