Investor Spotlight: Durable Capital Partners

Today we’re looking at Durable Capital Partners, the Chevy Chase, Maryland VC firm whose investments are no laughing matter. Most recently, they led the staggering $1BN Round D of the German software company, Celonis.
 

 FT Montage/Bloomberg

For Durable, Ellenbogen raised $6BN to start and got to work quickly, making an inaugural investment in Seattle-based Convoy. The company simplifies shipping and distribution and saw a sharp spike in revenues in 2019, the same year as the investment. Durable Capital’s 12-person investment team is made up of 6 other former T. Rowe colleagues, including CFA Anouk Dey (former T. Rowe investment analyst & VP). The fund primarily focuses on small and mid-cap companies in both public and private markets.

Here’s a look at Durable's recent private company investments:

• Celonis counts Uber, Dell, Siemens & Loreal among its customers for its Executive Management System (EMS) software. The Munchen, Germany company raised a $1BN Round D led by Durable and included T. Rowe, Franklin Templeton, Arena Holdings, and Splunk Ventures in the round, valuing Celonis at $11BN.

• Material Bank is a marketplace for searching and sampling architectural, design, and construction materials. Material's $100MM Round C was co-led by General Catalyst Partners.

• HoneyBook is a San Francisco-based financial management platform for small businesses and freelancers, in an era when more people are quitting their jobs and going solo. Durable Capital led the company's $155MM Round D in May.

• Capsule is a digital pharmacy valued at $1BN. The company experienced hyper-growth in 2020, in part due to the pandemic’s tele-healthcare boom, and raised a $300MM equity round in April. Durable Capital participated alongside T Rowe., Ballie Gifford, and Whale Rock Capital.

• Brex is offering enterprise all-in-one financial software for customers like Airbnb, ClassPass and Y Combinator. Its Round D in April of $425MM brought the company's valuation up to $7.4BN, $4.4BN over the previous year's valuation.

• Scale’s mission is to accelerate the development of AI by providing data-centric solutions to machine learning. Durable joined the $325MM round led by Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Tiger Global Management.