Spark invests broadly across consumer-oriented companies - like a new Silicon Valley laptop maker called Framework - as well as those that sell to businesses. The two Boston investments that show up high on that list are Wayfair, the home goods e-commerce site, and Flywire, a digital payments company that went public last May. When you look at the firm’s website today, it lists some of its biggest successes, and the vast majority of those first dozen companies are headquartered in New York or San Francisco, like Slack, Oculus (now part of Facebook), self-driving car tech firm Cruise (now majority-owned by GM), and Discord, which many regard as “Slack for young people.” Spark has also backed the eyewear retailer Warby Parker in Manhattan and Snap, the social media app headquartered in Los Angeles.
A key early export to San Francisco was Nabeel Hyatt, a Cambridge gaming entrepreneur who joined Spark in 2012. He and Politi helped define the firm’s reputation as one that would take a flier on unproven concepts and first-time founders, well before a company had brought in its first dollar of revenue.Įventually, the firm began hiring investors in New York and San Francisco and opened offices there. Sabet, a New York native and avowed Yankees fan, put money into startups like Omgpop, maker of the once-hot game Draw Something, and the mobile app Foursquare. Boston was at best third.” Dagres says the attitude was, “You go where the deals are. The action was mainly in California and some in New York. Our first big hits were Tumblr in New York and Twitter in San Francisco. “From day one, we said that we were going to do the best deals we could do, but do them from Boston,” Dagres says.
Spark didn’t want to be constrained to investing in local companies - in part because Boston has never been fertile ground for entertainment and social media startups. (As expected in venture capital, there were plenty of flops, too, companies that were sold at a loss or shut down, like Boston-based mobile-ad firm Jana.) Two other early hits were Tumblr, a service that made it easy to start a blog and attract followers, and Twitter, the social media platform geared to short attention spans. Its very first investment, thePlatform, was snapped up by Comcast to help the cable giant manage digital content. That focus led the firm to make some bets that paid off big. Winklevoss Capital Tribe Capital Pitango Venture Capital GGV Capital Accel Anorak Ventures Outlander Labs Square Peg Capital Susa Ventures DST Global Norwest Venture Partners Cherry Ventures ENIAC Ventures The Engine Future Perfect Ventures Starburst Ventures Foundry Group Lead Edge Capital Cedar Fund Ten Eleven Ventures South Park Commons Nyca Partners Cyberstarts VC Defy Partners FPV Fund Lux Capital Andreessen Horowitz General Catalyst iNovia Capital Founders Fund Lightspeed Venture Partners SV Angel Initialized Capital DTCP AAF Management Ltd.Related : The ‘big shift’ of VCs into climate tech | Innovation Beat IVP Thayer Ventures Comcast Ventures Caffeinated Capital Scout Ventures GSV Acceleration Global Innovation Fund Uprising O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures Real Ventures Digital Currency Group DFJ K9 Ventures Nokia Growth Partners Techstars Binary Capital Social Capital Lightbank General Atlantic Bain Capital Ventures Insight Venture Partners Revolution Broadway Angels Thrive Capital Chicago Ventures BoxGroup Altair Capital Management boldstart ventures AngelPad Cubit Investments Ltd Coelius Capital Trustbridge Partners Presence Capital Melo7 Tech Partners, LLC Sequoia Capital Israel Congruent Ventures Sound Ventures Amplo Kapor Capital Sutter Hill Ventures Battery Ventures Fifth Wall Liquid 2 Ventures M34 Capital NKM Capital Real Estate Technology Ventures Alven CRV 7percent Ventures DBL Partners GV Richmond Global Ventures Kima Ventures Recursive Ventures #SecretFund Coinbase Ventures Craft Ventures Addition Viola Ventures Baseline Ventures Coatue Alkeon Capital Bling Capital Plum Alley Investments Bond Alumni Ventures Group ACME Capital Felix Capital Renegade Partners Scifi Vc SproutVest Ltd.