Menlo Ventures has raised $1.35 billion in new capital that it plans to use in part “to support the next generation of artificial intelligence startups,” the venture capital firm announced today.
Notably, and unsurprisingly, the company is currently quite bullish on the future of artificial intelligence, noting that it has already supported the types Abnormal, Anthropic, Cleanlab, Pinecone and Typeface.
“Not every investment has to be an AI investment, but we think that’s where the most exciting innovations will spark,” said Venky Ganesan, partner at Menlo Ventures. “That said, we also believe that as AI becomes more sophisticated, we will increasingly rely on AI-powered tools and services to make us faster, smarter and better at what we do. At that point, AI will lose its novelty and become an unexpected, if not expected, partner throughout the day. Many of the companies that were already in the market with products and services that lacked AI features have quickly moved up to the level of AI capabilities so that they can remain competitive and relevant in this new era of AI.”
With the new funds, the company says it has raised more than $3.8 billion across eight fund groups and distributed $5.2 billion to its LPs. The new capital will to be invested by the 46-year-old firm’s flagship venture fund, Menlo XVI, which focuses on Series A stages. Menlo Inflection III, which focuses on Series B and beyond. and their associated funds.
In July 2022, the Bay Area company, known for its early bets on companies like Uber and Warby Parker, told regulators it had secured $761.4 million for the third “special opportunity” fund.. Menlo closed on Fund XV, a $500 million increasein October 2020. It currently has $5.6 billion under management.
Over the years, Menlo has seen 80 portfolio companies exit, 15 of which went public. These companies include Getaround, Carbonite, Gilead, Roku and Rover.
The firm also says it has made seed and early-stage investments in 24 unicorns in the enterprise, consumer and healthcare sectors and has seen 65 of its portfolio companies get acquired. These acquired companies include StrataCam (acquired by Cisco), Tenor (acquired by Google), and PillPack (acquired by Amazon), among others.
Recent Menlo investments include top Finch Raises $40M Series B; and Sana Labs $34 million round. It also—as mentioned above—participated in AI darling Anthropic’s $450 million May raise.
Looking ahead, the company said inside a blog post: “AI represents a seismic shift that will add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy, and Menlo will help write the next chapter.” However, it plans to continue investing in healthcare/digital health, consumer, cloud infrastructure, cyber security, fintech and SaaS startups.
Menlo isn’t the only venture capital firm raising more than $1 billion these days. In October, Greylock Partners revealed two new efforts: a $1 billion early-stage fund — its 17th — and Greylock Edge, a program to support founders who develop ideas into companies with early revenue and product-market fit.
This story was updated after publication to include comments and information from Menlo.
