OpenView Venture
Partners Launches With
$100 Million Inaugural Fund
OpenView Venture Partners, a newly launched venture capital firm
focused on investing in global InfoTech companies, announced the close of its
first fund at $100 million. Led by
Scott Maxwell,
OpenView Venture Partners, L.P. is a spin-out of Insight Venture Partner’s
Boston office, and will invest in expansion stage companies who will benefit
from OpenView’s significant operational value add capabilities and experience.
OpenView’s value add is core to the firm’s strategy of developing
deep relationships and providing operational assistance to improve the
products, sales and marketing, and customer service of portfolio companies.
“We are excited to launch our first fund to pursue the large
opportunity we see for collaboration between expansion stage InfoTech
companies and our team of operational experts,” said Maxwell, founder and
managing partner. “We set the goal of operational value add because, in our
experience, this involvement leads to enthusiastic customers and increased
growth rates, profitability, and long term competitive advantage. We believe
the more value we provide, the greater and faster the portfolio company builds
value.”
“OpenView’s new fund and the team’s strategy to focus on deep
value add is strongly endorsed by us,” said
Jeff Horing,
founding partner and managing director of Insight Venture Partners. “As a
previous managing director at Insight, Scott was instrumental in developing
Insight’s successful hands-on value add program and his decision to replicate
this at OpenView demonstrates the proven benefits to portfolio companies and
investors. We believe OpenView has all the key ingredients to be a top tier
investment firm.”
OpenView Venture Partners’ value add begins with its focus on the
InfoTech market and the expansion stage of a company’s growth. OpenView
invests in companies that configure software, data, and/or hardware into
packages that provide meaningful value to their users. This includes software
on all platforms and all delivery models, as well as internet, information and
technology enabled services. OpenView’s definition of expansion stage
encompasses companies with working and installed core products that have
reached an initial market with customers that use, like, and reference the
product. In practice OpenView seeks a minority ownership of $5 million to $10
million in companies with good historic growth, and a minimum of $500,000 in
revenues per quarter.
“We strongly believe that the issues and opportunities faced by
expansion stage InfoTech companies are very different than the issues faced by
companies in other sectors or in other stages of development,” stated Maxwell.
“With our sector and stage choices, we are able to provide comprehensive value
against a specific set of issues and opportunities. In our experience this
will deliver superior returns to our Limited Partners and our portfolio
companies.”
OpenView Venture Partners will continue to collaborate with
Insight Venture Partners on existing Insight portfolio companies and on
continued initiatives to add value to the portfolio companies of both firms.
Maxwell will remain on the Board of Directors of his previous portfolio
companies and Horing will act as Special Advisor to OpenView Venture Partners.
OpenView Venture Partners (www.openviewpartners.com)
is an expansion stage venture capital fund with a focus on high-growth
software, Internet, and technology-enabled companies. Through its staff of
seasoned operating executives, who collectively bring several decades of
technology & management experience to the firm, OpenView is able to help
portfolio companies with quickly ramping up sales, marketing and product
development functions to best practice levels.
Insight Venture Partners (www.insightpartners.com)
has raised over $2 billion in capital to invest in leading software,
technology and Internet services companies. Headquartered in New York,
Insight takes a global approach to investing, providing hands-on execution and
strategic advice to ensure portfolio companies benefit from Insight’s
cumulative experience working and building successful software companies.
Insight was founded in 1995 and has a heritage of creating long-term value for
all stakeholders in expansion stage and mid-market buyout transactions.
