Alex Ferrara is a partner in Bessemer’s NYC office where he focuses on investments in the areas of SMB software, digital tokens, autonomous systems, and security. Alex’s current and previous board service includes Shopify, Pipedrive , Wix, Dashlane, Wandera, PhishMe, NewVoiceMedia, Dashbot,  SelectMinds (acquired by Oracle), OMGPop (acquired by Zynga), Yodle (acquired by Web.com), ThreatTrack Security and Social Tables. He was also involved with the firm’s investments in Pure Networks (acquired by Cisco), Skype (acquired by Ebay), Zopa, SiteAdvisor (acquired by McAfee), Goal.com (acquired by Perform Group), Activ Financial, TeamViewer, and Gerson Lehrman Group.

Alex’s other historical investments include Alibaba Group and Hootsuite. Alex started his career as a software developer at Salomon Brothers and later worked as a derivatives trader. Prior to BVP Alex worked at Goldman Sachs in technology investment banking.

Alex holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, and a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

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Companies

ACTIV Financial Services, Inc.

Provides market-data content and technologies to market makers, hedge funds, brokers and trading systems.

Investment Date: 
2009
Related Strategy: 
Financial Services
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - East
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Anaqua, Inc.

Anaqua sells software and services for Intellectual Property (IP) management and Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) primarily to large enterprises.

Investment Date: 
2013
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Dashlane

A consumer password management application and secure digital wallet.

Investment Date: 
2014
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Cyber Security
Consumer
Security
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Deepscale

Deepscale has developed perception technology for autonomous vehicles.

Investment Date: 
2016
Related Strategy: 
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - West
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Gerson Lehrman Group

Provides systems to help financial-services firms, consultancies, corporations and not-for-profit institutions find, engage, and manage their proprietary expert networks.

Investment Date: 
2004
Related Strategy: 
Financial Services
Marketplaces
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Goal.com (acq. by Perform)

Goal.com is the world's leading Web site for soccer fans. In February 2011, it was acquired by Perform Group plc.

Investment Date: 
2008
Exit Year: 
2011
Related Strategy: 
Consumer
Geography: 
Europe
Read More

NewVoiceMedia Limited

NewVoiceMedia Ltd. is a global provider of cloud contact centre solutions.

Investment Date: 
2013
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Geography: 
Europe
Read More

OMGPOP (acq. by Zynga)

Makers of the iPhone game Draw Something, downloaded over 30 million times, OMGPOP is an innovative web and mobile social game developer.  In March 2012, OMGPOP was acquired by Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA).

Investment Date: 
2009
Exit Year: 
2012
Related Strategy: 
Mobile
Consumer
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

PhishMe

PhishMe is the leading provider of education and incident response tools to help enterprises defend against phishing and social engineering attacks. 

Investment Date: 
2016
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Cyber Security
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a cloud-based sales automation and CRM software provider.

Investment Date: 
2015
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - West
Read More

Pure Networks (acq. by Cisco)

The leading provider of home-networking software and services.

Investment Date: 
2005
Exit Year: 
2008
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Geography: 
North America - West
Read More

Rocketrip

Rocketrip helps businesses reduce corporate travel costs by rewarding employees for saving.

Investment Date: 
2016
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

SelectMinds

SelectMinds helps clients build relationships among their employees, alumni, and other key constituents.  In October 2012, SelectMinds was acquired by Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL)

Investment Date: 
2007
Exit Year: 
2012
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Shopify

Shopify provides e-commerce software to SMBs.  The company went public in May 2015 (NYSE: SHOP; TSX: SH)

Investment Date: 
2010
Exit Year: 
2016
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Industry Software
Retail
Developer Platforms
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Skype Technologies (acq. by eBay)

A global, peer-to-peer, Internet-communications service.

Investment Date: 
2003
Exit Year: 
2005
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Mobile
Video
Consumer
Geography: 
Europe
Read More

Social Tables

A SaaS suite for hospitality and event planning.

Investment Date: 
2014
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Industry Software
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

ThreatTrack Security

ThreatTrack Security helps organizations identify and stop Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), targeted attacks and other sophisticated malware designed to evade the traditional cyber-defenses.

Investment Date: 
2013
Related Strategy: 
Cyber Security
Security
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

Wandera

Wandera pioneered the Secure Mobile Gateway to help organizations protect their data from mobile threats and gain better visibility and control over their mobile data usage.

Investment Date: 
2013
Related Strategy: 
Cloud Computing
Mobile
Geography: 
Europe
Read More

Yodle (acq. by Web.com)

Yodle provides local marketing and lead-generation services online to small and medium sized businesses. In March 2016, Yodle was acquired by Web.com (NASDAQ: WEB).

Investment Date: 
2006
Exit Year: 
2016
Related Strategy: 
Industry Software
Ad technology
Geography: 
North America - East
Read More

From the Blog

View Blog

BVP invests in Anaqua to fund the future of IP management

Alex Ferrara | October 17, 2013

Bitcoin And The Future Of Money

Alex Ferrara | April 15, 2013

Strategies

By the Numbers:

$32
billion highest valuation paid (Alibaba Group)
1
programming books authored
1,400
miles cycled so far this year