Abhishek Lahoti VP Business Development Europe, Sapphire Ventures
Previously
Business Development & Distribution Partnership, DropboxEnterprise Solutions Architect Lead, Dropbox
Senior Director of Product Development, Thismoment
Director, Sales Engineering, Thismoment
Company
Sapphire Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on helping innovative technology companies become global category leaders. With over $4B in assets under management across their platforms, Sapphire is positioned to elevate companies across technology sectors to the global stage. A key part of this is their Portfolio Growth unit that uniquely serves portfolio companies ready to scale through business development and operational support.
Search Background
As the Portfolio Growth team continues to be a central pillar of how Sapphire Ventures differentiates itself and adds value to rapidly-scaling VC-backed startups, there was the need to launch the PG team into Europe with the addition of a leader for the Business Development function in EMEA.
Requirements
The successful candidate would play a central role in building the Sapphire Ventures network across CIOs and CXOs at European corporates so ideally would have had experience working in Business Development and Solutions – serving corporate clients. The ideal candidate would also need to be comfortable operating in a hands-on capacity given the maturity of function in EMEA for Sapphire so the right candidate will ideally have operated within a startup previously.
Result
Erevena identified and introduced Abhishek Lahoti to Sapphire Ventures. His experience in Business Development and Enterprise Solutions at Dropbox, combined with start-up experience at Thismoment provided the exciting combination of background that is needed. Abhishek’s network and advisory experience with venture-backed startups meant that he brings highly relevant and recent experience of helping founders solve the type of challenges that he’ll be working with at Sapphire Ventures.
Shruti Tournatory
VP Business Development
Working with Erevena was a pleasure. We chose them to support us with this critical hire because of their experience in delivering excellent work for both venture funds and venture-backed businesses. The Erevena team were terrific in helping us agree on a strategy before providing us with a diverse shortlist of candidates to meet. We are delighted with the results and so excited to have Abhishek join the team.
