Emergence VC Brian jacobs redoubles focus as b2b funding getsa crowded

Emergence VC Brian Jacobs redoubles focus as B2B funding gets crowded

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Emergence Capital Partners co-founder Brian Jacobs says competition among business software investors has grown in the past year.

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Cromwell Schubarth

Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal

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Emergence Capital Partners' Brian Jacobs says that his industry is shrinking but competition among B2B venture investors is as fierce as he can remember since co-founding the firm in 2003 with Gordon Ritter and Jason Green.
"We are seeing some frothy valuations and very successful financing in the business software space," he told me in a recent interview, which is excerpted below.
One way to counter that is to focus on earlier stage investments that VCs who are new to the space tend to be more wary of.
Among the companies he has invested in and is a board member are Hightail (formerly YouSendIt), Intaact, Bill.com and InsideView.
What trends are you seeing now in the venture capital?
The general trend in the venture business is the industry is shrinking. There is less money being raised. It’s down from last year and the year before. I think the money that VCs raise seems to be focusing more and more on the sector that we’ve always been focusing on — business software.
A year ago or so there was a lot of interest in the consumer segment and there was also a pretty strong interest in cleantech. Those categories have kind of crested and declined. We are seeing more and more activity and more and more VCs moving into business software, which we are not really excited about because that’s what we focus on 100 percent. We are seeing some frothy valuations and very successful financing in the business software space. So while the industry is shrinking, we can’t see it in our sector at all.
Does that make it any harder for you to find good companies to fund in your space?
I think we have to work as hard or harder than ever before.

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