Sorenson Ventures closes $110 million maiden investment fund
LEHI — Sorenson Ventures, a subsidiary of Lehi-based Sorenson Capital, announced Wednesday it has closed a whopping $110 million investment fund, the company’s first, focused on early stage enterprise software and security companies.
In a release, the company noted it has invested in eight companies and plans to expand its portfolio to 15-20 total investments.
Ken Elefant, Sorenson Ventures managing director, said he and his team aren’t just investors but instead are taking an active role in helping grow and nurture the startup efforts they’re backing with their initial fund.
“Our focus on helping entrepreneurs by proactively working with them beyond a simple investment has already been resonating with high-quality startups,” Elefant said in a statement. “We roll up our sleeves and seek to add value by making connections to customers, helping teams recruit key talent and assisting them in finding product-market fit. We become their true partners, like early stage venture funds used to do in the early ’90s.”
Parent company Sorenson Capital has been part of the equity investment community since 2003 and has some $1 billion under management. Sorenson Ventures launched in 2017, and principals Elefant and Rob Rueckert have deep investment resumes with experience at Battery Ventures, Lightspeed and Intel Capital.
Companies receiving backing include CyCognito, a cybersecurity startup; Botkeeper, automated bookkeeping software; Paperspace, a machine learning platform; NS8, an anti-fraud company; OpenPath, a provider of mobile-enable, cloud-based access control systems; Octarine, security for cloud-native applications; Trizic, a digital wealth management platform; and an unnamed analytics company.
“We are product-first investors and are attracted to entrepreneurs who use their engineering vision to change markets, which you will see evidence of in our first eight investments,” Elefant said. “Most of our founders are repeat entrepreneurs with strong domain expertise.
“We’re going to continue to invest in innovative software and security companies that have impressive intellectual property and management teams with the vision to execute.”