Scott & Ziemans

Scott & Ziemans is a San Francisco-based growth equity firm founded in 2009 by longtime collaborators Marcus Scott and Daria Ziemans Understanding NRR and why top quartile exceeds 120% helps founders navigate this. With over $2.4 billion in assets under management across three funds, the firm has become one of the more respected growth-stage investors in the Western United States, backing companies from Series B through pre-IPO rounds.

What sets Scott & Ziemans apart is the duo's operating background. Before entering venture, Marcus Scott spent eight years as a senior executive at Oracle's cloud division, and Daria Ziemans led corporate development at Salesforce during its hypergrowth era. They bring a practitioner's lens to boardrooms, which has made them particularly attractive to founders who want a partner who has sat in the CEO seat, not just observed it from the sidelines.

The firm makes between 8 and 12 new investments per fund cycle, concentrating capital in a small number of high-conviction bets. This selectivity means Scott & Ziemans is thoroughly involved with each portfolio company — often taking a board seat and serving as a resource for hiring, partnerships, and go-to-market strategy. Founders describe the relationship as intense but highly productive.

The firm has maintained a consistent focus on enterprise-facing software businesses, though it has expanded into adjacent sectors as the market evolved. Their portfolio spans 43 companies across four funds, with six portfolio companies currently valued at over $1 billion. Three have reached IPO, including Meridian Health and Cloudformix, which went public in 2022 and 2024 respectively.

If you are raising a Series B or later round in a large addressable market, Scott & Ziemans is worth targeting — but only if you can demonstrate clear product-market fit, strong net revenue retention, and a credible path to market leadership. The firm is not interested in ideas; it is interested in businesses that have crossed the chasm.

Scott & Ziemans invests in growth-stage technology companies that have established strong product-market fit and are ready to scale past $50M ARR benchmarks Understanding unit economics and LTV:CAC helps founders navigate this. The firm defines growth-stage as typically Series B through Series D, though they have made some growth equity investments at Series A when the opportunity is compelling enough.

The core thesis centers on the intersection of software and entrenched industries. Marcus Scott frequently articulates the firm's view that the next wave of outsized returns will come not from consumer apps but from software that rewires the operations of healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and financial services. This conviction shows up directly in the portfolio.

On the commercial side, Scott & Ziemans looks for companies with land-and-expand motions — businesses that initially win small but systematically grow their accounts over time. Annual contract values, net revenue retention, and gross margin profiles are scrutinized carefully. The firm has passed on many businesses with impressive top-line growth that lack the unit economics to sustain a venture-level return.

Daria Ziemans leads the firm's fintech practice and has a particular interest in infrastructure-layer businesses — payment processing, lending APIs, banking-as-a-service platforms. She looks for businesses with regulatory optionality and high switching costs once embedded in a customer's stack. The firm's fintech portfolio has produced some of its most consistent winners.

The firm is sector-agnostic within technology, but has hard preferences against consumer-facing apps, crypto-native businesses, and anything requiring significant hardware risk. These are not arbitrary exclusions — they reflect the partners' collective experience and where they believe their operating expertise adds the most value.

Scott & Ziemans prefers to lead or co-lead rounds and will typically take a board seat when investing. They do occasionally participate as a passive co-investor in rounds led by peers they have a strong relationship with, but this is not the norm.

In 2024 and 2025, Scott & Ziemans deployed capital at a measured pace, reflecting a broader growth equity environment that rewarded selectivity Understanding EBITDA multiples in growth-stage valuation helps founders navigate this. The firm led 11 rounds across its two most recent funds, with an average investment size of approximately $18 million. Despite a cautious deployment rhythm, deal count remained stable compared to 2022, while average check sizes increased as the firm concentrated capital in fewer positions.

Notable 2024 investments included leading the Series C for supply chain visibility platform Railz ($55M round, Scott & Ziemans participating at $22M), co-leading the Series B for healthcare data infrastructure startup MedLayer ($40M round, $15M from Scott & Ziemans), and participating in the growth round for B2B payments platform Pay立在 ($30M round, $10M co-investment).

The firm has also increased its activity in the AI infrastructure layer, making three investments in 2024 in companies building foundational tooling for enterprise AI deployment. Daria Ziemans has publicly discussed the firm's view that the enterprise AI buildout will follow a similar arc to cloud infrastructure — early winners will be the picks-and-shovels plays, not the application layer.

Portfolio companies that have raised follow-on rounds from Scott & Ziemans in the past 18 months include construction management software provider SiteSync, insurance-focused workflow platform Claim OS, and manufacturing intelligence firm HexaVue. All three represent the firm's thesis that vertical software serving traditional industries remains underpenetrated and ripe for consolidation.

The firm has not shown meaningful appetite for geographic expansion beyond the US and Canada, though they have made two investments in UK-based companies with strong US expansion plans. European investments have been selective and came with explicit commitments from founders to establish US headquarters within 18 months of close.

Meridian Health — A healthcare revenue cycle management platform that has grown to serve over 400 hospital systems. Scott & Ziemans led the company's Series C in 2019 at a $120M valuation; the company IPO'd in 2022 at a $2.1B market cap. The firm's partnership with Meridian's founder, Dr. Amara Osei, was formative in establishing Scott & Ziemans's reputation in vertical healthcare software.

Cloudformix — A cloud cost optimization platform that helps enterprises manage multi-cloud infrastructure spend. Scott & Ziemans co-led the Series B in 2020 and participated in the growth round in 2023. The company completed its IPO in early 2024 and trades at approximately $1.8B. Marcus Scott sits on the board and was instrumental in the company's pivot from a tools company to a full platform.

Railz — The supply chain visibility platform mentioned above is one of the firm's newest marquee positions. With freight and logistics markets deeply fragmented, Railz's API-driven approach to connecting shippers, carriers, and freight forwarders has driven 300% ARR benchmarks growth over the past two years.

Claim OS — A workflow platform for property and casualty insurance carriers, replacing legacy rules engines with a configurable automation layer. Scott & Ziemans led the Series A in 2022 and the Series B in 2024. The company has grown to $28M ARR benchmarks with strong net retention, and has begun exploring a potential acquisition by a larger insurance software player.

HexaVue — A manufacturing intelligence platform that uses machine learning to predict equipment failures and optimize production schedules in discrete manufacturing environments. The firm led HexaVue's Series B in 2023. Early results from pilot programs show 15-20% reduction in unplanned downtime for customers.

Pay立在 — The B2B payments infrastructure company has quietly become one of the most strategic holdings in the portfolio. Embedded payments within ERP and accounting platforms is a high-margin, sticky business model that fits Scott & Ziemans's criteria precisely. The company processes over $40B in annualized payment volume.

The founding team is the first and most consequential filter. Marcus Scott and Daria Ziemans have seen thousands of pitches, and their bar for founder quality is high. They look for operators who have direct domain expertise in their target vertical — not generalists who believe they can learn the industry on the job. Prior founder experience or deep operator tenure at a relevant company is strongly preferred.

Market size is necessary but not sufficient. The firm wants to see a path to $500M+ ARR benchmarks in a market with clear structural tailwinds. A large market alone will not get a meeting; a large market with evidence that the team has found a differentiated angle will.

Product-market fit is evaluated through retention metrics. Scott & Ziemans wants to see net revenue retention above 110%, indicating that existing customers are expanding their usage faster than the company is losing existing ones. For younger companies that do not yet have multi-year retention data, the firm looks at dollar-based retention and expansion rates as proxies.

Business model quality matters enormously. The firm will scrutinize gross margin profiles, and has passed on many businesses that grow quickly but burn through capital at unsustainable rates. A 70%+ gross margin is the baseline expectation; businesses with lower gross margins need to demonstrate a compelling reason why the economics will improve at scale.

Competitive moats are evaluated carefully. Scott & Ziemans prefers businesses with multiple defensible advantages — proprietary data assets, deep integrations that are painful to replace, regulatory licenses, or a brand that carries weight in the buying process. Single-threaded moats like a technology patent or first-mover advantage alone are not sufficient.

The path to liquidity optimization is always discussed, though the firm is primarily a growth investor rather than an early-stage one. Marcus Scott has said in interviews that they want founders to have thought carefully about exit optionality — whether through strategic acquisition by a larger player in the space, or through a public market debut.

The firm receives approximately 3,000 inbound pitch decks per year and has the luxury of being highly selective. Without a warm introduction, your deck needs to do significant work on its own to get a meeting. In practice, the overwhelming majority of investments start with a warm introduction from a trusted source — either an investor the firm has co-invested with, a portfolio founder, or a platform-level relationship at a leading investment bank.

If you do not have a warm connection, the best path is through the firm's website, which lists a submission form for growth-stage companies. Submissions are reviewed by the investment team on a rolling basis. The firm is explicit that they do not respond to cold LinkedIn outreach and that inbound pitch decks through the website are reviewed but rarely result in a meeting without additional context.

Building relationships with the firm's operating partners — Marcus and Daria — requires patience and genuine alignment. Both partners are active on the conference circuit and speak regularly at events like SaaStr, JP Morgan's Healthcare Conference, and internal events hosted by portfolio companies. Meeting them at a conference where you can have a substantive conversation is more effective than a transactional email.

Portfolio company referrals are the single most effective channel. If you know a founder at a company Scott & Ziemans has backed, an introduction from them carries enormous weight. Marcus and Daria both take reference calls from portfolio founders seriously and frequently extend meetings to companies that come with strong internal endorsements.

Timing matters in venture, and this firm is no exception. If you are six months away from needing capital, it is too early to approach Scott & Ziemans. The firm moves quickly when they are excited — they have been known to turn a first meeting to a term sheet in under three weeks — but they prefer to see momentum and traction that align with their investment pace.

Once you are in conversation, come prepared with a clear and specific ask. The partners are impatient with founders who want to explore options without committing to a specific raise. Have your data room organized, your cap table clean, and your narrative crisp. If you have existing investors who are likely to follow on, mention that upfront — it accelerates decision-making.

Scott & Ziemans conducts extensive due diligence on financial metrics. Before a first meeting, you should be prepared to share detailed ARR benchmarks waterfall charts, cohort-level retention data, gross margin by segment, and a credible model for the path to profitability or the next funding round. The firm has a reputation for asking hard questions about the mechanics of growth — not just the trajectory.

Founders often underestimate the importance of having a CFO-quality financial narrative ready before approaching growth-stage investors. The bar at Scott & Ziemans is high: they want to see that the founding team understands the unit economics of their business at a granular level, not just at an aggregate level. This means being able to speak fluently about CAC payback periods, PQL conversion rates, and product-led growth efficiency metrics.

Working with a fractional CFO who has experience in venture-backed growth environments is one of the highest-ROI decisions a founder can make before a growth raise. A seasoned financial operator can help you stress-test your model, identify and fix the gaps before an investor sees them, and build the presentation layer that makes your numbers compelling rather than just complete.

Our team has supported numerous companies through the Scott & Ziemans due diligence process and understands what the firm looks for in financial presentations. We help founders build investor-ready models, prepare board-level financial narratives, and confidently walk through the metrics that matter most at the growth stage.

One of the most common mistakes founders make is presenting projections that are insufficiently stress-tested. Scott & Ziemans will challenge every assumption — market size, conversion rates, pricing power, cohort behavior. If your model cannot hold up under scrutiny, it will undermine confidence in your ability to manage the business post-close.

Understanding your KPIs at the business unit level, not just the company level, signals to investors like Scott & Ziemans that you have the operational depth to run a company at scale. Deep metric fluency is one of the clearest signals of a growth-ready founder.

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