Bessemer Venture Partners Closes Two Funds At $4.6 Bn

Venture capital (VC) firm Bessemer Venture Partners on Friday (September 9) said it has closed $4.6 Bn in new capital across two funds which will allow it to back entrepreneurs and management teams across new stages of growth in India and globally.

The two funds include its $3.85 Bn twelfth flagship fund, BVP XII, and $780 Mn inaugural BVP Forge fund.

Bessemer Venture Partners primarily invests in early and growth-stage startups. However, with the new funds, it is looking to expand its flexibility to support growth buyouts with different liquidity, capital structure, and operational support requirements.

The VC firm’s existing funds are BVP XI fund of $2.475 Bn, Century II growth fund of $825 Mn, and India-focused early-stage fund with a corpus of $220 Mn. It had closed the India-dedicated fund in November last year.

The new BVP XII fund will enhance Bessemer Venture Partners’ primary focus on seed and early-stage investments in businesses across deep tech, consumer, fintech, and healthcare, Bessemer Venture Partners said in a statement.

On the other hand, the VC firm’s $780 Mn Forge fund is specifically designed for growth buyout and significant minority transactions in software and tech-enabled services businesses.

“We pride ourselves on partnering with entrepreneurs to help them scale from their earliest days through IPO and beyond. BVP Forge allows us to widen our ability to support management teams seeking liquidity and wanting a hands-on partner to navigate through their next stage of growth,” said Brian Feinstein, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Bessemer Venture Partners takes a global approach to its investments with teams located in Silicon Valley, New York, San Francisco, London, Boston, Tel Aviv, Beijing, and Bengaluru. The VC firm claims to have more than 135 IPOs and 200 portfolio companies in the enterprise, consumer, and healthcare segments.

The VC firm participated in funding rounds of several Indian startups in the past few months. In July this year, Bessemer Venture Partners was a part of fintech giant Innoviti’s $45 Mn Series D equity and debt financing round.

Prior to that, it led SaaS content marketplace Pepper Content’s $14.3 Mn funding round in June.

Earlier this year, it also participated in Bengaluru-based healthcare startup MediBuddy’s $125 Mn Series C funding round.

Meanwhile, a seemingly growing ‘funding winter’ continues to hit the Indian startup ecosystem. The capital inflow into the country’s startup ecosystem fell 17% to $20.82 Bn during January-August period this year as compared to the corresponding period of 2021, as per an Inc42 report.