MENLO PARK: IVP, a premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firm, announced that Ajay Vashee is joining as a General Partner.
Ajay brings deep operational and financial experience to the role, and will invest in high-growth technology companies across a range of markets, with an initial focus on SaaS, collaboration software, and subscription businesses.
Most recently, Ajay was Chief Financial Officer of Dropbox, where he led the company through its successful IPO and first several years as a public company. During his tenure, Ajay helped Dropbox scale into one of the world’s largest SaaS businesses—from $45M to nearly $2B in revenue, and from 50 million to more than 600 million users.
Over that time, the employee base grew 30-fold, and the company opened offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Ajay built the finance, corporate development, and real estate organizations from the ground up, and under his leadership, Dropbox made close to a dozen acquisitions.
“We first met Ajay nearly a decade ago while he was working in venture at NEA, and have been fortunate to partner with him since our investment in Dropbox. We’ve been incredibly impressed by his ability to navigate the company through each stage of its growth. His experience building and scaling teams, leading large organizations, and managing a transition to the public markets will be a huge asset to both our portfolio companies and prospective investments,” said Somesh Dash, General Partner at IVP.
“Ajay played a critical role in so many areas of the company over the years. He helped steer Dropbox through some of our biggest milestones—from our early funding rounds to our IPO. He was instrumental in shaping our culture, and was an admired and trusted leader who served as a role model for everyone at the company. I’ll always be grateful to Ajay for everything he did for us,” said Drew Houston, CEO and Co-Founder of Dropbox.
Prior to Dropbox, Ajay spent four years at NEA investing in venture and growth-stage enterprise, consumer, and energy companies. He began his career in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley. Ajay graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science.
“Ajay has a unique background that includes years as an operating executive at scale, in addition to venture capital and investment banking experience. We look forward to benefiting from his perspectives as we assess new investment opportunities in high-growth technology companies—and then get to work helping those companies achieve breakout success,” said Steve Harrick, General Partner at IVP. “I am confident that Ajay will play a big role in the future of the firm, and we are delighted to welcome him.”
“I’ve had the privilege of working closely with IVP over the past eight years, and I know there’s not a better growth stage team or platform out there. They have an unparalleled track record of success and a deep commitment to their portfolio companies, and I’m thrilled to join the firm,” said Ajay.
“The proliferation of productivity tools, tectonic shifts in distributed work, and fundamental re-architecture of the enterprise tech stack make this a really exciting time to be investing. I’m looking forward to leveraging my experience to help visionary entrepreneurs build the next generation of impactful and enduring technology companies.”
Since its inception in 1980, IVP has invested in over 400 companies, and helped 115 of them to go public. IVP is typically a lead investor in later-stage rounds with equity investments ranging from $10 to $100 million. The firm was a Series B investor in Dropbox, and has also backed innovative companies like CrowdStrike, Datadog, Discord, GitHub, Glossier, Grammarly, HashiCorp, Hopin, Klarna, Slack, Snap, Supercell, TransferWise, Twitter, and UiPath.
With $7 billion of committed capital, IVP is one of the premier later-stage venture capital and growth equity firms in the United States. Founded in 1980, IVP has invested in over 400 companies with 115 IPOs. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments.
IVP investments include such notable companies as AppDynamics (CSCO), Coinbase, Compass, CrowdStrike (CRWD), Datadog (DDOG), Discord, Dropbox (DBX), GitHub (MSFT), Glossier, Grammarly, HashiCorp, Hims & Hers, HomeAway (AWAY), Hopin, Klarna, LegalZoom, Looker (GOOGL), Marketo (MKTO), MasterClass, Mindbody (Vista), MuleSoft (CRM), Netflix (NFLX), Personal Capital (Empower), Podium, Rubrik, Slack (WORK), Snap (SNAP), Supercell (Tencent), Tanium, TransferWise, Twitter (TWTR), UiPath, Yext (YEXT), ZenDesk (ZEN), ZipRecruiter, and Zynga (ZNGA).
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