Bessemer Venture Partners: 113-Year-Old VC Behind Shopify, LinkedIn, Twilio, and Pinterest

In 1911, Henry Phipps Jr.—a co-founder of Carnegie Steel—spun out a family office from Bessemer Trust in New York. That office would eventually become Bessemer Venture Partners, making BVP older than the Model T, older than the Federal Reserve, older than jazz as a genre. While most venture firms measure their existence in decades, Bessemer has spent an entire century watching technology cycles rise and collapse. The firm now operates eight offices across five continents and has watched 150+ of its portfolio companies reach public markets.

This longevity breeds a peculiar confidence. Bessemer publishes an "Anti-Portfolio" on its website—a public list of companies they passed on and the reasoning behind each pass. Apple, Google, Facebook, Cisco, Tesla, Airbnb, Stripe: all passed through Bessemer's doors and out the other side. Publishing this isn't humility; it's a signal that the firm has enough conviction in its process to show where it was wrong. Founders find this oddly refreshing, because it means Bessemer will give them honest feedback even when passing on a deal.

The firm's annual State of the Cloud report has become the closest thing enterprise software has to a Required Reading document. The accompanying Cloud 100 list, published with Forbes, benchmarks the top 100 private cloud companies in the world—in 2025 that list surpassed $1 trillion in aggregate value for the first time. Getting on the Cloud 100 can redirect a whole category of investor attention. Bessemer wields this influence deliberately, using their platform to define which companies matter in the discourse.

Bessemer closed $1 billion for BVP Forge II and $350 million for a second India fund in 2025, even as many peers were retrenching. That deployment appetite signals that limited partners still believe in the firm's ability to pick winners across market cycles. Recent exits from Hinge Health and StubHub demonstrate Bessemer's continued ability to guide companies through IPO, while the acquisition of Melio by Xero shows strategic exit thinking at work.

With $1 billion committed specifically to AI-native companies, Bessemer is making a pointed bet that the next decade of category-defining software businesses will be built on AI infrastructure and applications. The firm has published extensive frameworks on Vertical AI—software that attacks specific industry workflows with AI-native architecture—and is actively seeding companies in that vein.

Bessemer's investment thesis centers on backing category-defining companies at the intersection of cloud infrastructure and AI. The firm's partners talk openly about "product-led growth" companies—software that spreads through user adoption rather than依赖于庞大的销售团队. Bessemer's public frameworks describe ideal companies as having recurring revenue metrics, cloud-native architecture, and clear paths to $100 million ARR.

The firm's AI thesis has evolved beyond general AI infrastructure. Bessemer now publishes a Vertical AI playbook, arguing that the biggest AI opportunities lie in applying large language models to specific industry workflows—legal, healthcare, finance, logistics—rather than horizontal AI tools. Their investing is thesis-driven in a way that most VC firms only simulate.

Bessemer evaluates companies using a proprietary "BVP Scorecard" that weights market size, product differentiation, and go-to-market efficiency. The firm publishes these criteria more openly than almost any comparable firm, which paradoxically makes their bar feel higher—founders who haven't done the homework show immediately. The scorecard draws on benchmark data from the firm's 150+ portfolio company IPOs.

The firm invests across seed through growth stages, though their BVP Forge vehicle has expanded early-stage activity to include $1–5 million checks before many other firms would engage. At Series A and beyond, Bessemer typically writes $10–50 million+ and has demonstrated willingness to write $100 million+ checks for the right opportunity at growth stage.

Bessemer launched two new funds in 2025: BVP Forge II at $1 billion and a $350 million India-focused vehicle. The India fund signals that BVP sees the region's enterprise software ecosystem as reaching escape velocity—and the firm has the network to support companies crossing borders into US and European markets.

The firm's 2025 State of the Cloud report identified AI infrastructure and Vertical AI applications as the two primary vectors for the next wave of cloud value creation. Bessemer has made this explicit in its public positioning, which means founders in those spaces can tailor outreach specifically to stated thesis.

Notable recent portfolio activity includes Hinge Health and StubHub IPOs in 2025. Both represent Bessemer's ongoing ability to shepherd companies through the public markets—a process that requires as much operational guidance as any board seat.

Bessemer's portfolio reads like a roll call of the defining software companies of the last two decades: Shopify (IPO 2015, transformed e-commerce for SMBs globally), LinkedIn (acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016), Twilio (IPO 2016, cloud communications infrastructure), Pinterest (IPO 2019, visual discovery platform), Toast (restaurant POS and management system), Yelp (local business discovery), Fiverr (freelance services marketplace), DocuSign (e-signature and agreement cloud), Wix (website building platform), and PagerDuty (operations management). The firm has backed 62 unicorns across these sectors.

Beyond the marquee names, Bessemer has shown particular depth in cloud infrastructure plays—companies like Wix and Shopify that built global software businesses on cloud-native architecture. The firm is often credited with defining the category of "cloud SaaS" as an investment thesis before it became conventional wisdom.

Bessemer's portfolio support model includes dedicated operating resources for go-to-market strategy, international expansion, and executive hiring. The firm's global presence—with offices spanning San Francisco, New York, Boston, London, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, and Sydney—gives portfolio companies real access to markets beyond the US.

Bessemer evaluates potential investments based on their published BVP Scorecard, which weights three primary factors: market size (is the total addressable market large enough to support a $1B+ company?), product differentiation (is the technology or user experience meaningfully distinct?), and go-to-market efficiency (can the company grow without proportional sales spending?).

Founder quality is non-negotiable. Bessemer looks for entrepreneurs with deep domain expertise who can explain their differentiation without jargon. The firm has seen enough pitch decks to spot borrowed buzzwords instantly—founders who speak from direct experience in the problem domain register immediately.

Product trajectory and engagement metrics are scrutinized closely. Bessemer has proprietary SaaS benchmarks—magic number, net revenue retention, CAC payback—drawn from their extensive portfolio data. Being able to speak fluently in those metrics signals that you understand the business model you're building.

Bessemer prefers companies with clear defensibility—not necessarily patents, but proprietary data assets, network effects, or switching costs that compound over time. The firm frequently asks founders to articulate their moat directly, in plain language.

Intellectual honesty during partnership meetings matters. Bessemer has backed brilliant founders who couldn't absorb critical feedback, and those investments went badly. They're explicitly looking for coachability alongside capability.

The best path to Bessemer runs through their portfolio. A warm introduction from a Bessemer-backed founder or a trusted investor who has co-invested with BVP will get immediate attention. The firm's deal flow is substantial enough that cold outreach without a reference rarely progresses far.

If cold outreach is your only option, be surgical about it. Reference their published State of the Cloud report or Anti-Portfolio by name. Explain specifically why BVP is the right investor for your stage and sector—not generic flattery. If you can't articulate why their thesis fits your company, they will notice.

When you get a meeting, expect a conversation, not a presentation. Bessemer partners will push back on your assumptions, challenge your projections, and probe whether you understand the competitive landscape. This is the firm's diligence style, and founders who engage directly rather than defensively tend to advance in the process.

Follow-up should include real progress—meaningful metric movements, customer wins, product milestones. If Bessemer says they'll circle back in 3–4 weeks, don't follow up daily. The firm's partners appreciate entrepreneurs who are focused on building, not chasing.

For seed-stage founders specifically, the BVP Forge vehicle has become more active at earliest stages, writing $1–5 million checks and often leading rounds that most seed funds would consider too early.

Whether you're preparing to pitch Bessemer or other top-tier VCs, presenting investor-ready financials can set you apart from the stack of companies competing for the same check.

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