'A Rare Land-Grab Moment': Menlo Ventures' Matt Murphy On The Next Wave of AI And Putting $3B In New Capital To Work
We speak with Menlo Ventures' Matt Murphy about why AI is pushing the firm toward larger deals, what it has learned from its Anthropic relationship, and where he sees the next big opportunities. Mary Ann Azevedo In June, Menlo Ventures footnote]Menlo Ventures is an investor in Crunchbase. They have no say in our editorial process.
Key Takeaways
- [/footnote] announced $3 billion in new capital across two funds , marking the largest raise in its 50-year history.
Menlo Ventures XVII will invest primarily in seed and Series A companies, while Menlo Inflection IV will provide growth capital to startups at Series B and beyond.
- The firm first invested in the AI model developer in 2023 and has added to its investment in later rounds.
- Crunchbase News spoke with Murphy about why AI is pushing Menlo toward larger and more concentrated investments, what the firm has learned from its relationship with Anthropic, and where he sees the next opportunities - as well as potential bottlenecks - across the AI market.
- For us, a larger fund gives us the ability to partner with founders from company formation through hypergrowth.
Through our venture fund, we invest in seed and Series A companies, but the inflection fund gives us the scale and flexibility to back the clear winners as they emerge.
- Remember, we first invested in the [Series] C round, which gave us a chance to get close to the team, see how well they were executing, and understand where they were going.
Stats & Key Facts
- #[/footnote] announced $3 billion in new capital across two funds , marking the largest raise in its 50-year history.
- #The firm first invested in the AI model developer in 2023 and has added to its investment in later rounds.
- #Before joining Menlo, Murphy spent 15 years as a general partner at Kleiner Perkins, where he was an observer at Google from the firm's initial investment through its IPO, helped launch the $200 million iFund with Apple and worked on investments including DocuSign, AppDynamics, Upstart and Shazam.
- #You've recently invested $100 million in companies including Lovable and Suno.
[/footnote] announced $3 billion in new capital across two funds , marking the largest raise in its 50-year history. Menlo Ventures XVII will invest primarily in seed and Series A companies, while Menlo Inflection IV will provide growth capital to startups at Series B and beyond. The new funds will target companies throughout the AI market, from foundational models and infrastructure to enterprise, healthcare and consumer applications.
The new capital gives the Silicon Valley firm more flexibility to back companies from their earliest days through later funding rounds that can require hundreds of millions of dollars. It also shows how important AI has become to a firm previously known for investments in companies including Uber , Roku and Siri . In recent years, Anthropic has become the most prominent company in Menlo's AI portfolio.
The firm first invested in the AI model developer in 2023 and has added to its investment in later rounds. Menlo's other AI investments include app-building platform Lovable , music-generation startup Suno , AI model marketplace OpenRouter , voice productivity company Wispr , AI infrastructure companies Fireworks AI and Modal , robotics startup Skild AI , and AI research company Goodfire . Matt Murphy , a partner at Menlo since 2015, has played a central role in developing that strategy.
For more details please read the original article at Crunchbase News.
Continue Learning
Comments
Sign in to join the conversation