Greylock raises $1 billion for its 16th flagship fund to invest in early- and growth-stage tech startups

The last time we wrote about Greylock Partners was back in November 2019 when the Menlo Park-based venture capital firm led a $24 million investment in San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup Abnormal Security, which protects organizations from the most sophisticated, targeted email attacks, including unknown threats that existing solutions miss.

Now, Greylock has closed its 16th flagship fund that will invest in enterprise and consumer-facing technology startups and businesses. In 2016, Greylock raised the same amount for its 15th flagship vehicle. The firm primarily targets consumer and enterprise software companies, with a portfolio that includes Airbnb, Medium, and Discord. The firm will use the new fund to back both early- and growth-stage startups.

The funding comes as Greylock prepares for big exits of existing portfolio companies, including Airbnb and Sumo Logic, which is set to go public this week. In an announcement on its website, Greylock said:

“With Fund 16, we will continue our focus on early-stage investing. While we primarily invest in enterprise and consumer software at Seed and Series A, the size of our fund gives us the flexibility to make new company investments in Series B and beyond including growth stages. Our fund size also allows us to support companies as a primary/lead investor through company journeys. In our most recent fund, 75% of investments made were seed or series A, and the rest were in series B and beyond. Notably, 10% of the companies we backed in our last fund started up right in our offices.”

Founded in 1965 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Bill Elfers and Dan Gregory, Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms. With committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management, Greylock focuses on early-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise software, and infrastructure as well as semiconductor sectors.

Charlie Waite joined Elfers shortly immediately after the company was founded. Elfers and Waite had both worked at American Research and Development Corporation. The original capital of $10 million was committed by a group of six families. The company opened a second fund in 1973. The firm opened its first office in Silicon Valley in 1999.

Greylock backs startup founders and entrepreneurs who are building disruptive, market-transforming consumer, and enterprise software companies. Greylock is one of the early investors in Facebook and LinkedIn. The firm invests in companies that define new markets, including Airbnb, AppDynamics, Apptio, Arista Networks, Cloudera, Docker, Dropbox, Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Nextdoor, Palo Alto Networks, Pandora Pure Storage, and Workday.