Brian Feinstein

Partner

San Francisco

Roadmaps

Brian is a partner in the San Francisco office and he focuses on investments in enterprise software. He is passionate about working with founders who are shaping their industries and often don’t fit the Silicon Valley mold.

Brian has been at Bessemer since 2008 and has invested in 5 companies that have gone public. Brian led the first institutional investments in Procore (IPO), Wildlife Studios, Restaurant365, Enjoei (IPO), and Ada, early-stage investments in Weave, Mambu, TractionGuest, and Clio, and growth-stage investments in nCino (IPO) and Bumble (IPO). Brian also led growth buyouts of LiveAuctioneers and Beyond.

During his time at Bessemer, Brian supported investments in Gainsight, Mindbody (IPO), Playdom and helped found Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture debt fund. Prior to Bessemer, Brian worked in the private equity group at Blackstone and founded an online advertising agency.

Brian graduated from Harvard University and sits on the board of the Heckscher Foundation for Children.

Portfolio Highlights

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Getting to know Brian

Black and white photo of mother and child — Brian with his mother

Brian came to the United States at age four after his parents uprooted their lives to go in search of a better future. After they moved, Brian watched his father build a business from scratch, and through that experience, he developed a lifelong respect for founders and their courage.

man speaking onstage being interviewed — nCino CEO Pierre Naudé

As a vertical software investor, Brian values industry expertise more than early hype and looks for scrappy founders who are building enduring businesses. He’s been working with industry-defining software companies for the past 15 years, and learning a lot along the way (you can read about some of the lessons here).

“People say venture capital is a pattern-recognition business, but the biggest opportunities exist where those patterns break.”

Posed group photo of four men shaking hands — Brian with Procore's President-Chief Culture Officer, Steve Zahm, board member Kevin O'Connor, and Founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board, Tooey Courtemanche

When Brian first met Procore’s founder and CEO, Tooey Courtemanche, nothing about him or his business fit the profile of a typical venture capital investment. Based in a town better known for its surfing than its entrepreneurship, Tooey spent a decade struggling to drive adoption of Procore’s product before ultimately building the largest company in construction software.

The Bessemer team had done enough market mapping work to believe that Procore was going to revolutionize construction, so they led Procore’s first institutional round in 2014. With a front-row seat to Procore’s evolution from startup to public company, Brian was able to see everything it took for the company to grow from $5 million to over $1 billion in revenue.

three men posed on stage at conference — Restaurant365 Co-Founders: Morgan Harris, Chief Community Officer, Tony Smith, Chief Executive Officer, and John Moody, Chief Strategist

Brian takes great pride in being his CEOs’ first call and thought partner, and helping them navigate thorny problems and new opportunities. As the largest investor in most of his portfolio companies, Brian feels enormous personal responsibility for guiding CEOs on the path to industry leadership —- whether that be by supporting them in crafting a financial plan, prioritizing the product roadmap, developing a fundraising strategy, or closing an important hire.

Portfolio Companies

Indicates Enduring

Ada

AI & ML Enterprise

Ada

Ada develops a chatbot platform that makes artificial intelligence accessible to non-technical support teams.

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Investors

Brian Feinstein

Founded

2016

Partnered

2016

Roadmaps

AI & ML Enterprise

Articles

Roadmap: The rise of synthetic media

10 GTM Lesson text written on top of clouds

Scaling to $100 million: Ramping your cloud GTM engine

State of the Cloud 2024

Jessica Popp on scaling engineering teams

Scaling your engineering team from one to 50 and beyond

Beyond

Consumer Vertical Software

Beyond

Beyond (formerly Beyond Pricing) is the world's first revenue management solution for short-term rental managers and owners to get grow and keep revenue.

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