Bessemer Venture Partners announced on 23 September that it had raised $5.75 billion, its largest fundraising, with $4 billion for growth-stage investments, Bloomberg reported.
Key points
- Bessemer raised the capital in a single close.
- The firm allocated $1.75 billion to seed and early-stage investments and $4 billion to growth investments.
- Bessemer has backed more than 260 AI-native companies since 2022.
- Its growth platform invests in established companies, including businesses already in its portfolio.
Bessemer commits $4 billion to growth
The $5.75 billion was raised in a single close and split between $1.75 billion for seed and early-stage companies and $4 billion for growth investments, Pulse 2.0 reported. The two pools give Bessemer capital to invest when a company starts and to participate in financing rounds as it expands.
The larger allocation goes to Bessemer’s dedicated growth platform. The platform makes concentrated investments in established technology companies, both within the firm’s existing portfolio and beyond it. Bessemer has expanded that business as technology companies stay private longer and raise substantial sums before considering a listing.
That longer private-company period changes the size of the rounds Bessemer is positioning itself to join. Its growth platform began as an extension of early-stage investing and now has dedicated capital and investment partners. Bessemer partner Byron Deeter said the practice was built to lead concentrated rounds in AI-native companies, according to Pulse 2.0.
Bessemer has used its growth practice to invest in companies including Anthropic, ClickHouse, Cognition, Legora, Ramp and Waymo. The firm’s early-stage investments include Abridge, Perplexity, Shopify, Toast and Wonderful. Those investments span businesses at different stages of development, the distinction reflected in the two allocations.
The $1.75 billion early-stage pool
Approximately 70% of Bessemer’s investments have been made at the early stage. The firm has invested before companies generated substantial revenue or established themselves in their markets. Partner Jeremy Levine said Bessemer’s approach remained to make early investments and continue backing founders as their companies grew, according to Pulse 2.0.
That history includes investments in enterprise software companies Box, Docusign and Shopify, TokenPost reported. The $1.75 billion allocation keeps an early-stage pool alongside a much larger growth pool, allowing Bessemer to invest at different points in a company’s development rather than use the same vehicle for every round.
Since 2022, Bessemer has backed more than 260 AI-native companies and invested over $3 billion in AI-related businesses. Those investments span computing infrastructure, foundation models, developer platforms, enterprise applications and AI agents. Its AI portfolio includes Anthropic, Cognition, Legora and Perplexity.
Anthropic and the longer private market
Bessemer partner Sameer Dholakia discussed the firm’s early investment in Anthropic in a Bloomberg interview. He described a “special moment” for investments across AI applications and physical AI, and said intelligence could eventually become an economic input comparable to oil.
The capital needs of companies serving large institutions can extend beyond an initial investment. Nelson Advisors, a healthcare technology investment bank, said sales cycles in that sector regularly last 12 to 24 months and enterprise-wide deployments require regulatory and clinical validation. It described Bessemer’s two-pool structure as a way to finance companies through development and expansion.
Nelson Advisors identified Abridge, which develops ambient documentation, as an example of the kind of healthcare business that could draw on larger growth rounds. Its assessment concerned the investment capacity of Bessemer’s new fund structure, rather than a new financing for Abridge.
Bessemer manages approximately $20 billion in assets, has backed more than 450 portfolio companies and has recorded over 155 IPOs across its investment history, Pulse 2.0 reported.
