Elevation Partners

About

Elevation Partners was an American private equity firm founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with additional offices in New York City ¹². The firm was founded by Roger McNamee and Marc Bodnick — both formerly of Silver Lake Partners — along with Fred Anderson (former CFO of Apple), John Riccitiello (former president and COO of Electronic Arts), Bret Pearlman (former senior managing director at The Blackstone Group), and Bono (Paul Hewson), the lead singer of U2 ¹²³. The firm’s name derives from the U2 song “Elevation” ¹.

Elevation Partners raised a single fund of approximately $1.9 billion focused on large-scale investments in intellectual property, media, entertainment, and technology companies ¹⁴. The firm made a total of eight investments from its inaugural fund, beginning in 2005 ¹. A second vehicle, Elevation Investors II, operated from 2012 to 2015 and backed companies including Airbnb, Uber, and Sonos ¹⁵.

The firm experienced significant team turnover during its operating period. Co-founder John Riccitiello departed in 2007 to return to Electronic Arts as CEO ⁶. Managing director Kevin Albert left in September 2010 ⁷. Co-founder Marc Bodnick departed in January 2011 to join Quora ⁸. Managing director Rajiv Dutta, who had joined in November 2009 from eBay, passed away shortly after Bodnick’s departure ⁷. Despite these changes, no key-man provisions were triggered ⁷.

The fund’s investment period ended in 2010, and the portfolio wound down between 2012 and 2015 ¹⁷. In 2015, former Elevation team members Fred Anderson, Avie Tevanian, Bret Pearlman, Adam Hopkins, and Rami Reyes formed NextEquity Partners, continuing a similar growth-equity strategy in technology and digital media ⁹. Bono joined TPG Growth as a Special Partner in 2015 and co-founded The Rise Fund, a $2 billion impact-investing vehicle, in 2016 ¹⁰.

Stated Thesis

Elevation Partners publicly described itself as a private equity firm focused on “large-scale investments in media, entertainment and technology businesses,” with a particular emphasis on “intellectual property and content oriented businesses” ²⁴.

Roger McNamee characterized the firm’s focus as “the intersection of media and technology,” reflecting his belief that technology was transforming content industries and creating new investment opportunities ¹¹. In describing the Forbes Media investment, McNamee stated: “The print media business is being transformed by technology, and Forbes has done a brilliant job of adapting its business to the new model” ¹².

The firm’s strategy was distinctive in targeting large private companies and taking significant minority stakes ($100M–$325M per investment), rather than the smaller check sizes typical of venture capital ¹⁴. Elevation sought situations where it could pair operational expertise — particularly from its team of former Apple, Electronic Arts, and Blackstone executives — with capital to accelerate growth in content-driven businesses ²³.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 8 verified investments from Fund I plus 5 verified investments from Elevation Investors II (13 total verified investments):

Stage distribution: Elevation operated almost exclusively as a late-stage private equity investor, not a venture capital fund. Fund I investments were concentrated in mature private companies or public-to-private transactions. Of the 8 Fund I deals, 7 involved companies that were well-established businesses at the time of investment (BioWare/Pandemic, Move Inc., Forbes Media, Palm, SDI Media, Facebook, Yelp). Elevation Investors II shifted toward growth-stage venture investments (Airbnb, Uber, Sonos).

Sector distribution (Fund I, 8 investments): The portfolio reveals a strong tilt toward media and entertainment: 3 of 8 investments (38%) were in media/content companies (Forbes Media, SDI Media, Move/Realtor.com); 1 of 8 (13%) was in gaming (BioWare/Pandemic Studios); 1 of 8 (13%) was in consumer hardware (Palm); 1 of 8 (13%) was in social media (Facebook); 1 of 8 (13%) was in local search/reviews (Yelp); 1 of 8 (13%) was in marketing analytics (MarketShare). The stated thesis of “intellectual property and content” aligns well with the actual portfolio — the majority of deals involved content, media, or entertainment IP.

Check size: Extremely large for Fund I — ranging from $100 million (Move Inc.) to $460 million (Palm, cumulative). The median initial check was approximately $264 million. This positioned Elevation as a private equity firm rather than a venture fund ¹¹³¹⁴.

Geographic concentration: Investments were predominantly U.S.-based, with a focus on Silicon Valley and New York media companies. SDI Media Group was the sole international-operations investment, with hubs in London, Copenhagen, Mexico City, and Hong Kong ⁴.

Notable gaps: Despite the team’s deep Apple connections (Fred Anderson as former CFO, Avie Tevanian as former chief software technology officer), the firm did not invest directly in Apple-ecosystem companies beyond Palm. The shift to Elevation Investors II (Airbnb, Uber, Sonos) suggests the team recognized the original thesis was too narrow and pivoted toward consumer-technology platforms in the fund’s final years.

Performance pattern: The fund’s returns were highly concentrated in a single position. Facebook (~$270M invested, ~$1.5B at IPO, ~5.6x return) effectively rescued the fund’s overall performance ¹⁵¹⁶. Palm ($460M invested, $485M returned, ~1.05x) was a near-total loss on a time-adjusted basis ¹³. Forbes ($264M invested, exited 2014 at ~1.8x) was a moderate return ¹⁷. BioWare/Pandemic ($300M+ invested, sold to EA for $860M in 2007, ~2.8x) was the strongest non-Facebook exit ¹⁸¹. The Oregon Investment Council, a limited partner with a $100 million commitment, reported a -0.4% internal rate of return as of September 2010, before Facebook’s IPO ⁷.

Portfolio

Fund I (2004–2012)

Elevation Investors II (2012–2015)

In Their Own Words

Roger McNamee, on Elevation’s founding vision: “In technology, the threat never came from big companies, it always came from startups” ¹¹.

Roger McNamee, on the Forbes investment (2006): “The print media business is being transformed by technology, and Forbes has done a brilliant job of adapting its business to the new model” ¹².

Marc Bodnick, on the Yelp investment (2010): “Yelp is revolutionizing how consumers discover local businesses with visionary leadership” ²¹.

Roger McNamee, on his mentorship of Mark Zuckerberg: “It was for three years between 2006 and 2009. Zuck had lots of mentors … all more important than I was” ²².

Roger McNamee, on his later disillusionment with Facebook: “I’m just a cheerleader, and then all of a sudden in 2016, I started to see things that simply didn’t fit my preconceived notion of the company” ²².

Roger McNamee, on technology platforms and users: “The problem today is that … the people are not the customers; the people are the fuel. We are just a metric” ²².

Elevation Partners spokesman Paul Kranhold, on team departures (2011): “The partners are heartbroken about the loss of Rajiv, but with his loss and Marc Bodnick leaving, none of the key man provisions have been triggered” ⁷.

What Founders Say

Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes Media, on the Elevation investment (2006): “This investment by Elevation Partners will now accelerate our pursuit of a number of very exciting opportunities for growth” ¹².

Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp, on the Elevation investment (2010): “This investment provides us with even more capital to focus on scaling our already proven business model” ²¹.

No additional independently sourced founder testimonials found beyond portfolio company leadership statements at the time of investment.

Sources