SJF Ventures

VC · Durham (United States)

VC

Seed

Series A

Hardware

Services

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About

SJF Ventures is a venture capital firm specializing in Series A-1, early, mid venture, late venture, expansion stage, growth-equity, and growth capital investments. The firm also makes secondary direct investments. For cleantech investments, it does not invest in start-up or early stage companies without commercial revenues, capital intensive companies requiring more than $25 million in equity, and upstream technology companies without market validation. The firm primarily invests in the cleantech and sustainability and technology-enhanced services sectors. Within cleantech, resource efficiency, and sustainability it seeks to invest in energy efficiency and technology, food safety, supply chain efficiency, demand reduction and response, and building automation; smart grid technologies, smart infrastructure repair and upgrades, including remote analysis, trenchless upgrade, wireless and robotic systems and other strategies for electric, water and wastewater technologies and services, and transportation systems; distributed and clean energy – solar, wind, geothermal, CNG and LNG; technologies addressing the aging infrastructure of electricity, water and waste; renewable energy, particularly developers, installers and integrators of solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass systems; asset recovery including reuse and recycling; green building technologies and services, including lighting, HVAC, materials, monitoring and controls, and other building systems; agricultural technology, aquaculture and sustainable food processing, particularly reducing water, fertilizer and chemical inputs, increasing yields, and improving food quality and safety; water and wastewater technologies and services, including leak detection and repair and distributed versus centralized system; commercial or industrial energy or waste recovery systems, biomass energy generation, combined heat and power, or solar thermal systems; web-based business models for efficiently connecting suppliers and customers to reduce waste, energy use, pollution or carbon impact, or to recover, reuse and recycle assets at their highest value; proprietary natural and organic food products and ingredients as well as personal care, bath and body and cosmetic; sustainable agriculture; and health and wellness consumer brands and services. Within the technology-enhanced services sector, the firm seeks to invest in companies that are leveraging the Internet, software and other information technologies to deliver innovative services to businesses and consumers including digital media and marketing services, education information technologies, reverse logistics, healthcare information technology and media; outsourced business services, such as distribution, fulfillment and maintenance offering; enterprise software-as-a-service; environmental data applications; clean web infrastructure software; education services, collaborative consumption; digital marketplaces; and crowdsourcing. It typically invests in the United States. The firm seeks to invest between $3 million and $10 million per portfolio company. It prefers to invest in companies with annual sales between $2 million and $30 million, enterprise value between $1 million and $50 million, and a maximum EBITDA of $10 million. The firm seeks to lead or participate in syndicate rounds with limited partners and co-investors for larger financings up to $10 million. It typically invests in companies that require less than $15 million over the life of the company in order to reach profitability and rapid sales growth. The firm usually invests in preferred stock, sometimes together with debt with warrants. It seeks to take a Board seat in its portfolio companies. The firm seeks to exit an investment within a period of five years or less through strategic mergers, initial public offerings, or management and private equity buyouts. SJF Ventures was founded in 1999 and is based in Durham, North Carolina with additional offices in San Francisco, California; New York, New York; and Richmond, Virginia.

Investment Criteria