Benchmark VC Peter Fenton’s hot — here’s what’s in his startup pipeline

Benchmark VC Peter Fenton’s hot — here’s what’s in his startup pipeline


Benchmark’s Peter Fenton, already ranked No. 3 on Forbes’ annual list of top venture capitalists, was in the spotlight this week after two companies in his portfolio filed plans for $100 million IPOs on the same day.

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But Hortonworks, New Relic and Zendesk — which raised $100 million in May and has since seen its valuation nearly triple to about $1.77 billion — aren’t all that the second-generation investor has in his pipeline.

Investment research firm CB Insights in March identified Fenton as part of a set of elite VCs with five or more companies nearing IPO exits and provided me with data about the rest of his portfolio.

Benchmark was involved in funding rounds in which Hortonworks raised $198 million of its $248 million total. The Palo Alto Big Data company is valued at more than $1 billion.

San Francisco-based analytics platform provider New Relic, which raised $114.5 million of its $214.5 million total funding in rounds that involved Fenton and Benchmark, is also valued at more than $1 billion.

Fenton also has invested in two other companies and sits on their boards: San Francisco-based Lithium Technologies and Foster City-based Zuora, both of which are cloud-based enterprise software companies.

Benchmark has been involved in every Zuora round, helping the company raise $127.5 million. It was valued in its latest round at

Fenton has been involved in rounds in which Lithium has raised $107.25 million of its total of $157.25 million raised.

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Here are the rest of the companies in Fenton’s Benchmark portfolio. (Not included are two public companies in which Fenton has invested and on whose boards he sits: Twitter and Yelp):

— ElasticSearch: This is a Los Altos company in which Benchmark and Fenton have invested during every one of its three rounds, raising $104 million. It developed open-source software for real-time search and analytics. CB Insights reports that it ElasticSearch is valued at $700 million.

— Minted: This San Francisco company crowdsources graphic designs and content from designers around the world. Benchmark and Fenton have been involved in rounds in which it raised about half of its $91.7 in total funding to date.

— Optimizely: Based in San Francisco, this startup has raised a total of $88.2 million. Benchmark was involved in rounds that accounted for $85 million of that. Its software platform enables A/B and multivariate testing for website developers.

— Docker: Another one from San Francisco, this company provides an open platform for distributed applications. Benchmark and Fenton have been involved in all but its seed round, helping Docker raise $65.8 million. CB Insights reports Docker is valued at $400 million.

— Engine Yard: This is another startup in which Benchmark and Fenton have been involved during every round, helping it raise $37.5 million.. The company is based in San Francisco and helps software developers provision, manage and monitor applications in the cloud.

Polyvore: Benchmark and Fenton have been in on all of this Mountain View online shopping discovery startup’s funding rounds. It has raised $22.1 million.

— Revinate: This is a San Francisco company that helps customers in the hospitality industry do social media. Fenton and Benchmark were involved in rounds that raised $14.5 million of its $15.2 million total.

Quip: This San Francisco company has raised one $15 million round. It developed a word processor that creates documents on phones, tablets and desktops. CB Insights reports that Quip is already valued at $95 million.