While many top venture firms continue to raise large sums of money, Greylock Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s oldest and most prestigious venture firms, is deliberately bucking the trend of larger funds.
On Tuesday, the 61-year-old company announced it had raised its 18th fund, worth $1.5 billion. This figure is 50% higher than the previous $1 billion figure in 2023 and is roughly in line with the capital the company has raised from its seed and flagship funds during the pandemic. Nonetheless, Greylock partner Saam Motamedi told TechCrunch that Greylock could have easily increased “multiples” of that figure, suggesting the partnership decided restraint was the better course as fund sizes across the industry continued to rise.
“Our mission is to be the most important partner to the most important entrepreneurs,” Motamedi said. The company prides itself on introducing its portfolio companies to top engineers and potential customers, like Baseten, an AI infrastructure startup now valued at $13 billion after its first Series A investment in 2022. But Motamedi said Greylock can only provide that level of support if it keeps the number of companies it supports small.
The firm’s 10 partners make only one or two new investments each year, and the fund will result in about 25 portfolio companies, Motamedi said.
Like its predecessor, the new fund will primarily focus on incubating companies from early stages and leading seed and Series A rounds. It is here that Greylock established its reputation. The company has a strong track record, starting from scratch with security giant Palo Alto Networks, which was founded in Greylock’s offices 21 years ago, and Abnormal, an email security startup that Greylock incubated in 2018 and was last valued at $5.1 billion.
Nonetheless, Greylock does not stick strictly to early-stage deals. Motamedi also said it would support late-stage companies with high potential, “even if we missed them early on.” The company’s 17th fund included three growth-stage bets: Anthropic, Revolut and Wiz.
The company made its first investment in Anthropic, valuing the AI company’s Series F at $183 billion. “This is the largest investment in the company’s history,” Motamedi said.
Motamedi estimates that about 15% of the new fund will be deployed in later-stage startups, but insists Greylock remains fundamentally an early-stage investor.
As evidence, Motamedi said that when the partners meet every Monday to review their investment pipeline, the agenda consists mainly of people’s names rather than company names.
“We’re getting to know people before they start the company. It’s really a gamble on people,” he said. “Sometimes the company doesn’t even exist.”
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