Menlo Ventures Launches The Inflection Fund at $500 Million

Palo Alto – March 11, 2019 – Cooley advised Menlo Ventures on the closing of its newest fund, The Inflection Fund, at $500 million. Partner John Dado led the Cooley team, which also included Katia MacNeill and Annie Reid, advising Menlo.

An inflection point is a decisive moment that marks the start of significant change, and Menlo wants to drive inflection for startups. The fund will target promising companies at the inflection stage, powering hyper-growth companies through the “venture gap” that lives between early stage venture and the increasingly competitive arena of mega-growth investing.

The Inflection Fund will be led by Menlo partners Matt Murphy, Mark Siegel, Shawn Carolan, Venky Ganesan, Tyler Sosin and Steve Sloane. Through the fund, Menlo will make $20 to $40 million investments in thematic and research-driven areas including SaaS, mobility, marketplaces, fintech, frontier tech, cloud infrastructure and AI – touching large consumer and B2B markets.

Through a combination of its historical “main fund” vehicles and the Inflection Fund program, Menlo provides capital for multistage consumer and enterprise technology companies.

Cooley’s relationship with Menlo Ventures goes back to the mid-1990s when partner Mark Tanoury began working with the client. Since then, Cooley has represented the firm in the formation of nine generations of venture funds dating back to Menlo Ventures VII, including the closing of Menlo Ventures XIV at $450 million in 2017 and the closing of Menlo Special Opportunities Fund at $250 million in 2016.

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