Joining Menlo: A Message from Matt Murphy
I’m thrilled to announce today that I’m joining Menlo Ventures as a Managing Director, focused on enterprise infrastructure and mobile-first application investments. It’s exciting for many reasons, but particularly because I’ve known and respected several of the Menlo partners for over a decade, including my close friend and business school classmate Mark Siegel. During our many discussions over the last couple of months, the fit—firm’s focus, size, culture, and team—became perfectly clear.
My new partners are similarly passionate about what I consider to be the two most powerful industry trends in my 15+ years of venture capital: 1) the reinvention of enterprise IT (which I wrote about recently), and 2) the shift to mobile-first applications (which I’ve been passionate about since launching the iFund seven years ago). Stage-wise, Menlo has excelled at investing both in early and “inflection-stage” investments, which cover the sweet spot for returns in our industry. Their focus has led to an ideal combination of leading enterprise companies like 3Par and PernixData (where I serve on the board), and more recently mobile-first market leaders, such as Uber and MachineZone.
Beyond a winning investment strategy, Menlo has always been distinguished by what they stand for and the culture of their partnership. This was the most important factor to me. It combines collaboration, openness, integrity, humility, and a drive to excel. This culture puts them on a short list of firms that both entrepreneurs and investors want to work with, as it leads to constructive partnering in both good and challenging situations.
It’s a great time for Menlo, having recently raised a $400 million fund, investing in many iconic companies, and having the leadership team of the future in place. Mark, Venky, Pravin, and Shawn constitute a strong nucleus at a similar stage of their investing careers who are smart, aggressive, balanced, and energized about building Menlo for the next many years. I’m honored to be part of that nucleus and tremendously excited about the tight-knit, focused team and opportunity for the firm ahead.
My new email is matt@menlovc.com. I’ll continue to serve on several boards on behalf of Kleiner Perkins and look forward to working with the KP team in many ways in my new role. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work in two such special environments, with such special people, in one career. Menlo has such a strong partnership and I’m fired up to be a part of it. I hope you’ll join me in this next phase of my career. I look forward to continuing so many wonderful relationships that I’ve enjoyed thus far, and making many many new ones in this next chapter.