Craft Ventures is an American

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

firm based in San Francisco which makes early stage venture investments. Craft was founded in 2017 by

David O. Sacks David Oliver Sacks (born May 25, 1972) is a South African-American entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Additionally, he is ...

and Bill Lee.

Background

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

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and

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

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. He co-founded StubHub and was its CEO from 2000 until 2007, when it was acquired by eBay. He also established the social video platform Spreecast in 2012, which ...

, 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. By 2015, it was the world's largest ticket marketplace. While ...

, joined as a 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, the founder of Boingo, and co-founder of City Storage Systems and CloudKitchen ...

, founder of

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

and Boingo Wireless, 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

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...

businesses and

marketplace A marketplace, market place, or just market, 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 ...

businesses. In November 2023, Craft announced the closing of Craft Ventures IV ($712 million) and Craft Ventures Growth II ($608 million).

Notable exits

References

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