BLUERUN VENTURES Investment Thesis

BlueRun Ventures is a veteran of the venture capital industry, HQ in Palo Alto and spinning out of the original Nokia VC arm. BRV is known for being the first institutional investor in PayPal, leading their Series A. BRV went on to lead the Series A rounds of successful startups such as Waze, Kabbage, Banjo and FreedomPay. BRV has a focus on the Fintech, Mobile and Enterprise Software segments.

We have had a longstanding relationship with the GPs at BRV, in particular Jonathan Ebinger. When we began investing at Elevate we felt it was important to have partnerships with well-run successful funds where we could collaborate and help develop companies. Elevate had the opportunity to invest in a new growth-stage fund of BRV along with some of the large pension funds and Corporate Tech firms in California. We did so because it gave us exposure to some fantastic companies such as Kabbage, FreedomPay, Banjo and Coupa.

From a portfolio standpoint, investing in later-stage companies allowed Elevate to have an exposure to companies that were closer to exit during the early years of Elevate’s fund life. We have already witnessed one of these successes with the IPO of Coupa in 2016. In addition there have been numerous opportunities where we have been able to collaborate in assisting companies in this BRV/Elevate portfolio with sales and strategy.