Sapphire Ventures is a technology-focused venture capital firm with $1.4 billion under management.  Formerly known as SAP Ventures, Sapphire Ventures is focused on helping today’s most innovative expansion-stage technology companies become global category-defining leaders.

Leveraging nearly two decades of experience and an extensive global enterprise network, Sapphire Ventures invests capital, resources and expertise to enable its portfolio companies to scale rapidly. Whether entrepreneurs sell to businesses, consumers or both, Sapphire Ventures offers a powerful platform for business development and operational excellence to help them accelerate growth. 

Sapphire Ventures is an expansion-stage investor, typically investing anywhere from Series B all the way up to pre-IPO.  Sapphire Ventures is currently making new direct investments into companies out of Sapphire Ventures Fund II, a $651 million fund which closed in 2013. Sapphire Ventures’ current and past portfolio includes leading companies such as LinkedIn, Box, Docusign, Fitbit, Square and On Deck Capital.  Separately, the organization manages the $405 million Sapphire SAP HANA Fund of Funds, which invests in early-stage venture capital funds.

SAP AG, a global enterprise software company, is currently the sole investor in Sapphire Ventures’ funds. While Sapphire Ventures and SAP maintain a close relationship, Sapphire Ventures makes its investment decisions independently, and the primary criterion for investment is the potential for financial returns, not strategic value to SAP.

Learn more at http://www.sapphireventures.com

Sapphire Ventures is seeking a pre-MBA associate to join its expansion-stage investment team with a start date in the summer of 2015.

Associates will be expected to primarily work on a number of investment-related activities, such as participating in meetings with entrepreneurs, due diligence of potential investment opportunities, oversight of existing investments, analysis of portfolio returns, and managing the deal pipeline.  Associates will work with companies in a variety of technology verticals and will gain experience with all the partners in the fund.  Most of the associate’s work will be to support the firm’s traditional direct investing activities; however, a small portion of the associate’s work may be dedicated to supporting the firm’s fund-of-fund efforts.

Over time, associates may focus their efforts on particular technology areas to increase their value to the firm and to the firm’s portfolio companies as well as to pursue areas of personal interest.  A portion of the associate’s time may be dedicated to firm-building activities, such as recruiting or supporting the firm’s marketing initiatives.

The Associate program at Sapphire Ventures is expected to be a two-year program.

Responsibilities

We expect that Associates will have a broad experience at Sapphire Ventures and will play multiple roles in the organization.

• Marketing / prospecting
  • Participate in company presentations.
  • Attend industry conferences to network with potential portfolio companies.
  • Conduct outreach to executives of interesting emerging companies to introduce them to the Sapphire Ventures platform.
  • We expect Associates to be proactive in pursuing marketing activities.
• Industry intelligence
  • Create overviews of emerging industries which highlight leading players and issues to be considered in evaluating investments in a particular sector.
• Direct investment company diligence
  • Play a leading role in organizing and leading diligence sessions.
  • Run diligence calls with customers and industry analysts.
  • Conduct financial analysis to support the evaluation of potential investments.  Typical work includes comparables analysis, scenario modeling, and returns analysis.
  • Draft investment memoranda.
• Analyze portfolio performance
  • Create regular and ad hoc reports on the expansion fund’s and individual portfolio companies’ performance.
• Maintain deal pipeline database
  • Ensure that all information on current and potential investments is updated on a regular basis.
  • Create regular and ad hoc reports.

• 2-3 years in a financial analysis position such as at a venture capital firm, investment bank, management consulting firm or technology-focused private equity firm.  We expect incoming associates to have significant experience working in Excel and creating and evaluating companies’ financial models.
• Experience working directly with management teams of leading technology companies.
• Outstanding academic credentials.
• Strong communication skills.  Applicants must demonstrate the aptitude to develop and own relationships with existing and potential portfolio companies.
• Demonstrated interest in tracking emerging technologies and entrepreneurial finance.

We are open to interviewing candidates interested in starting immediately or wishing to wait to join the firm until summer 2015.  However, we hope to conclude our recruiting process no later than the end of February.

Work location in Palo Alto, California.
Authorization to work in the United States required.