Craft Ventures is a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

firm based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

which makes early stage venture investments. Craft was founded in 2017 by David O. Sacks and Bill Lee.

Background

Craft was founded in 2017 by David O. Sacks, formerly of

Yammer Yammer () is an enterprise social networking service that is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. It is used mainly for private communication within organizations but is also used for networks spanning various organizations. Access to ...

and

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

and Bill Lee, formerly of Remarq and Big Fish Games.

Jeff Fluhr Jeffrey Fluhr is an American business executive, currently a general partner of Craft Ventures, Craft. He co-founded StubHub and served as its CEO from 2000 until 2007, when it was acquired by eBay. He also established social video platform Spreec ...

, founder and former CEO of

StubHub StubHub is an American ticket exchange and resale company. It provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater, and other live entertainment events. It is the world's largest ticket marketplace. While the compa ...

, joined as general partner in 2018 and

Sky Dayton Sky Dylan Dayton (born August 8, 1971) is an American entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder of Internet service provider EarthLink, co-founder of eCompanies, and the founder of Boingo. Early life Dayton's father was the sculptor Wend ...

, founder of

EarthLink EarthLink is an American Internet service provider. It went public on NASDAQ in January 1997. Much of the company's growth was via acquisition; by 2000, ''The New York Times'' described Earthlink as the "second largest Internet service provider ...

and

Boingo Wireless Boingo Wireless is an American company that designs, builds and manages wireless networks. Its public and private networks include distributed antenna systems (DAS), small cells, macro towers and more than one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the ...

, joined as venture partner the same year. Craft announced its first fund of $350 million in January 2018 and its second fund of $500M in October 2019.

Funds

Craft Ventures I ($350 million) was raised in 2017. Craft Ventures II ($500 million) was raised in 2019. In August 2021, Craft announced the closing of Craft Ventures III ($612 million) and Craft Ventures Growth I ($510 million), focusing on

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businesses and

marketplace A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...

businesses.

Notable Exits

References

{{reflist Financial services companies established in 2017 Venture capital firms of the United States 2017 establishments in California