Crosslink launches $350M fund to back early-stage startup founders

Crosslink, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in ambitious early-stage founders, announced it has closed $350 million for its ninth flagship venture capital fund, Crosslink Ventures IX. The new fund, which was oversubscribed, includes support from both new and existing investors.

Crosslink will invest the new fund in ambitious early-stage founders building category-defining companies. The firm closed $275M for its previous venture fund back in June 2018. In conjunction with the funding, Crosslink also announce that it has promoted Phil Boyer to Partner. Phil joined Crosslink in 2014 and focuses on investing in enterprise applications, infrastructure, vertical software, and frontier technology.

Founded in 1989 by Michael Stark, Sy Kaufman, Crosslink is a premier early-stage venture capital firm with over $1.3B in assets. The firm partners with founders that are market disrupters and category creators, typically at the Seed-Series A stage, across highly dynamic enterprise and consumer technology sectors. Crosslink focuses on early-stage venture capital investing, backing entrepreneurs who are building disruptive and market-transforming companies. Crosslink has raised nine venture capital funds and manages over $3.6 billion

Over its thirty-year history, Crosslink has had the opportunity to partner with defining companies such as Bleacher Report (acquired by TWX), BuildingConnected (acquired by ADSK), Chime, Coupa (COUP), DataStax, Molekule, Omniture (acquired by ADBE), Personal Capital (acquired by Empower Retirement), Postmates (acquired by UBER), ServiceMax (acquired by GE), Verodin (acquired by FEYE), Vungle (acquired by Blackstone) and Weave.

“We take a decidedly different approach from most early-stage investors and our mission is to help our companies succeed by partnering with them and plugging them into the rich ecosystem of alpha and our portfolio,” said Eric Chin, General Partner at Crosslink and co-founder of alpha. “We are honored to have the opportunity to work with exceptional founders who select us as partners, and are grateful for the support of our limited partners.”

“Essential to Crosslink’s culture is a commitment to teamwork and a prioritization of integrity above all else,” said David Silverman, General Partner at Crosslink. “We are dedicated to building excellence in our process across the firm and delivering results for our entrepreneurs, investors, and partners.”

A core element of Crosslink’s strategy is its commitment to alpha, an invite-only networking group of more than 2,000 founders, CEOs, and influencers who are passionate about the next generation of technology. Alpha’s mission is to build the premier peer to peer networking forum in the startup community, connecting entrepreneurs and leaders through more than 50 annual forums and highly curated events where they can engage in meaningful, candid dialogue and build deep relationships with their peers.