Peterson Ventures, a Salt Lake City, UT-based pre-Series A venture firm that invests across SaaS and digital commerce, raised over $140M in new capital for its Fund IV and Opportunity Fund I.
Peterson Ventures’ Fund IV will invest up to ~$2.5M into Seed and Pre-seed stage startups.
The Opportunity Fund I will enable the firm to invest follow-on checks at the growth stage in breakout portfolio companies from its core funds.
With the launch of these two new funds, Peterson Ventures now has over $550M in assets under management.
Founded in 2012 and led by Ben Capell, Managing Director, Ilana Stern, General Partner, and Taylor Jones, Principal, Peterson Ventures invests in SaaS, pursuing a vertical strategy, with investments across healthcare, future of work and e-commerce enablement, digital commerce, looking for entrepreneurs who are disrupting distribution, bypassing the middleman to get more direct access to customers and to provide higher quality products at better value to the end consumer, and DTC, focusing on historically low NPS industries and experiences spanning e-commerce, healthcare, fintech, and consumer-enabled marketplaces.
Peterson Ventures sources investments from a three-pronged approach:
1) the firm’s roots in the Utah tech hub, a state which saw $26B in transaction value generated in 2020;
2) access to the talent and entrepreneurial ecosystem at Stanford’s GSB MBA program, where the firm’s partners have a deep network from decades of teaching and investing in students as well as alumni; and
3) a network of founder alumni referring companies to Peterson Ventures.
To date, the firm has invested in six unicorns and had 2 IPO’s in the last ten years, including Allbirds, Ethos, and Lucid Software.
With nearly 100 investments, Peterson Ventures looks at SaaS and Digital Commerce startups with a specific lens.
FinSMEs
30/06/2022