Yesterday, we had the great fortune to announce TripleLift’s $1.4B majority acquisition by Vista Equity Partners. As I read through the excited messages on my subway ride home, I couldn’t help but think about the pride and joy that the TripleLift team must be feeling.
In many ways, TripleLift symbolizes the best of venture capital’s potential. We were blessed to invest in Eric Berry, Ari Lewine, and Shaun Zacharia as they were coming out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA). From the very first pitch, their vision was clear: “The web is going visual.” Pinterest was beginning to gain traction, and they could see where the puck was going three moves out.
Though they encountered some hurdles along the way, they never lost focus on their belief in the visualization of the Web. Laconia’s thesis today grew out of our legacy investment in Triplelift, but more so in Eric, Ari, and Shaun.
With each of our investments, we focus on three key pillars: operational execution, sales acceleration, and capital strategy. TripleLift nailed all three.
When it comes to operational execution, they ensured nothing was overlooked. Each investor update not only included the traditional boxes that needed to be checked, but also emphasized corporate culture and employee wellness, which we found forward-thinking. We were also impressed with how they continued to upgrade their team as the business evolved, balancing loyalty to the person and responsibility to the company.
On the sales acceleration front, there was a period in the company's lifecycle when they saw the future of ad distribution becoming more programmatic. Those early partnerships accelerated their growth at a time when programmatic ad buying was also in its infancy.
But what truly separates TripleLift from the rest of the pack is their capital strategy. They checked their ego at the door and based their success on their growth instead of valuation, building a market leader on less than $20 million of total capital raised. On numerous occasions over the past 9 years, I am sure they’ve had numerous options to exit, and the strong foundation of their business enabled them to stay on course toward their long-term vision.
To our co-investors (True Ventures, Edison Partners, NextView Ventures, Inovia Capital, ERA and all the others): thank you for your partnership over these past nine years. And, most importantly, to Eric, Ari, Shaun, and the other team members we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know: thank you for your trust, and congratulations on your remarkable achievement.
We are proud to remain investors in TripleLift and look forward to having Vista Equity as part of the team. The journey does not end, and one could say it is only the beginning.