Announcing Ridge Ventures’ $180 Million in New Funding
Say hello to our fifth fund, Ridge V!
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on our fifth fund, Ridge V. With $180 million in total capital commitments — exceeding our initial fundraising target — this marks the largest fund in our firm’s history and brings Ridge Ventures’ total AUM to $540 million.
As we reflect on this significant achievement, the first word that comes to mind is grateful. The past year has been an arduous journey for venture firms, founders, and limited partners alike. The investing landscape was fraught with challenges as interest rates increased amidst rampant inflation, tech stocks cratered, IPOs and valuations declined and we even witnessed the collapse of storied financial institutions. These difficulties occurred against a backdrop of global unrest, including ongoing wars, security concerns, and a multitude of humanitarian crises that have unfortunately become all too frequent.
Startups across the enterprise ecosystem gutted their way through obstacles, and we’re both humbled and proud that our investors continue to entrust us with significant capital to identify and support the next generation of great software companies through our new fund.
In fairness, this isn’t technically a Ridge V ribbon-cutting ceremony as we’ve already made 7 investments from the fund, including Theom, Streamline AI, Aeqium, Kibsi, and Arya. In deploying Ridge V, we look for enterprise software companies at post-product, yet pre-product-market fit stage, typically Seed and early Series A rounds.
The size of Ridge V is substantial relative to other Seed and early Series A-focused funds, which allows us to partner with a wide range of awesome founders building their businesses from the ground floor. The current market opportunities are vast and lucrative — from applications of generative AI (of course) to taking complexity out of cloud infrastructure deployments, from API management to the unbundling of Amazon functionality for the rest of e-commerce.
Whatever enterprise solution a team is building, Ridge will help sharpen product-market fit and drive early revenue growth. Our Ridge Revenue Network, a consortium of Fortune 500 CIOs and CMOs, introduces qualified enterprise customers to our portfolio companies, at the most advantageous point in the company’s development. In many of our companies, we have brought the largest or the most important customer to them in the first quarter after our investment. We continue this collaborative effort through the life of our investment in order to maximize equity value, and the relationship continues well beyond an exit. We partner with experienced founders, many of whom we’ve worked with successfully in the past.
We want to thank our diverse group of investors, including leading fund of funds, non-profits, foundations, healthcare systems, family offices, insurance companies, dozens of Ridge founders, and even more CXOs who work with our partner companies. Many are longstanding Ridge investors, and we’re pleased to welcome several new investors who are partnering with us for the first time. We’re all in with you — over 6% of Ridge V is our Partners’ personal capital.
We can’t forget the exceptional founders whose colossal efforts produce something out of nothing, a near-religious experience for those who are privileged enough to observe and participate.
We are also grateful to be working with a diverse, high-performance team that takes care of each other. Akriti, Alex, Brendan, David, Derrick, Erika, Mary, Nancy, Yousuf, and Zain couldn’t be more excited to collectively carry the Ridge torch for our stakeholders.
Many thanks, again, to everyone who helped us get here — our founders, our longstanding and new limited partners, our phenomenal Venture Partners, Ridge Revenue Network members and various CXO advisors. You are all part of The Ridge Familia, and there is no Ridge V without your support.
What’s next? Be on the lookout for some serious portfolio pyrotechnics from Ridge V as we invest through this market dislocation.
Thankfully, it won’t be our first rodeo.
Let the fun(d) begin!
