Wing Venture Capital Closes $450 Million Third Fund

Wing Venture Capital has announced that it closed Wing Three, which is a $450 million pool of capital dedicated to early-stage investing and long-term company-building in enterprise technology. Interestingly, Wing Three was raised virtually with nearly all investor discussions occurring over video during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Wing Three will be invested to help founders build businesses that enable the “Modern Enterprise” — which is an agile workplace built on data and powered by artificial intelligence.  Wing Venture Capital invests in companies at the early, seed, and Series A rounds. And it partners for the long-term with its company-building skills and resources.

Over the past couple of years, Sara Choi (formerly of Google), Jake Flomenberg (formerly of Accel) and Aaref Hilaly (formerly of Sequoia) have joined Zach DeWitt, Gaurav Garg and Peter Wagner as investing partners. And during the same period, operating partners Rajeev Chand (Head of Research, formerly of Rutberg), Sunil Chokshi (Head of Talent, formerly of A16Z), and Didi Dayton (Head of Market Development, formerly of FireEye) have joined to lead key portfolio service initiatives designed to accelerate the progress of early stage enterprise tech companies.

Wing has seen its investment pace accelerate since the pandemic lockdown and it is already closing the first few investments from the new fund. And the Wing team has operated in challenging environments before: three of Wing’s six investing partners were active venture capitalists or company founders during both the dot-com crash of 2000 and the economic crisis of 2008.

“Times like these are when many of the best companies are formed,” said Peter Wagner, a Founding Partner of Wing. “Founders of true grit step forward to build companies in a less cluttered market with a keen focus on execution. We look forward to supporting entrepreneurs of this caliber and character with the resources of Wing Three.”

The partners of Wing have seen a string of notable exits in recent years, including 6 substantial acquisitions over the past fifteen months: Shape Security (F5), ThousandEyes (Cisco), Demisto (Palo Alto Networks), BlueJeans Network (Verizon), Cumulus Networks (Nvidia), and Aporeto (Palo Alto Networks).

And across their venture careers, the Wing team has worked as early lead investors in 21 enterprise technology companies that have gone public or realized billion-dollar exits, including eighteen IPO’s and 3 billion-dollar-plus acquisitions.

“With every investment we make, we aim to help build an enduring company that can create its category and change the technology landscape,” added Gaurav Garg, a Founding Partner of Wing. “Wing’s reason for existence is to be the best possible partner to founders of similar ambition.”

Source: Pulse2

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