Sherpa Capital

About

Sherpa Capital is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in March 2013 by Shervin Pishevar and Scott Stanford ¹². The firm operated under two names during its history — “Sherpa Ventures” in its early years and later “Sherpa Capital” — and is now effectively wound down, having rebranded as ACME Capital in late 2018/early 2019 following significant leadership changes ³⁴.

Founders’ backgrounds: Pishevar was previously a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, where he built the firm’s consumer practice and led investments including Uber’s $26 million Series B in 2011 ². Stanford spent 12 years as co-head of Goldman Sachs’ Global Internet Investment Banking division in San Francisco, advising on over $80 billion of equity and debt financings and strategic transactions with companies including Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Uber, LinkedIn, and Palantir ⁵.

Fund history: The firm raised three funds during its active life: - Sherpa Ventures Fund I — $154 million, closed July 2014 ²⁶. The fund’s first investment occurred in July 2013 when it co-led a round for BackOps (later HireAthena) ⁷. - Sherpa Ventures Fund II — $172 million, focused on early-stage opportunities through Series D follow-on investments ⁸. - Sherpa Everest Fund — $298 million, focused on mid-stage investments with potential for LP co-investment opportunities ⁸.

The $470 million raise for Funds II and Everest was announced in June 2016, bringing total AUM to approximately $630 million ⁸. As of July 2017, investors had committed nearly $640 million to Sherpa overall ¹.

Team structure: Beyond its two co-founders, Sherpa Capital included investing principals Brian Pham (ex-Morgan Stanley) and Bran Yee (ex-General Atlantic), Managing Director and COO/CCO Kirby Bartlett (since 2015), and venture partners Tina Sharkey and Padmasree Warrior ⁸⁹¹⁰. The firm employed approximately 12 people as of 2016 ⁹. Tina Sharkey also led an affiliated consultancy called Sherpa Foundry (later Sherpa Capital Foundry), which provided strategy and digital transformation services to established corporations ¹¹.

Departure of Pishevar: In November 2017, Bloomberg reported that six women accused Pishevar of sexual misconduct, including inappropriate touching, forcible kissing, and unwanted sexual advances made in conjunction with offers of professional enhancement ¹². Pishevar denied all allegations ¹². He took a leave of absence from Sherpa Capital and Virgin Hyperloop One in December 2017, then resigned permanently from both on December 14, 2017 ¹³¹⁴. He was not charged with any crimes ¹³.

Transition to ACME Capital: Following Pishevar’s departure, Scott Stanford continued managing Sherpa’s existing portfolio. In November 2018, Stanford announced a new firm with Hany Nada, co-founder of GGV Capital; Sherpa Capital’s team and portfolio management transitioned to the new entity ³⁴. The firm was renamed ACME Capital, with a new fund of approximately $200 million announced in 2019 ¹⁵. ACME Capital subsequently raised $240 million (early-stage) and $60 million (later-stage) in 2022 ¹⁶.

Stated Thesis

Sherpa Capital publicly described its core investment strategy as “regulatory arbitrage” — a thesis centered on identifying industries constrained by outdated regulations, then backing companies that could disrupt those regulatory frameworks to unlock economic value and job creation ¹².

Pishevar articulated this approach directly: “stasis and monopolies are interesting, because if you can break them, you unlock a tremendous amount of economic value and job creation” ¹. He illustrated the concept with the example of Uber Black subsidizing UberX through “adjacent subsidization” — allowing cheaper consumer-facing services to be cross-subsidized by premium offerings ¹⁷.

The firm described its portfolio construction strategy as a “track and invest” model: coming in as a co-investor at the early stage to track young startups, then taking a more significant stake at the Series A or B round ⁷. Stanford described their unique value proposition as deep enterprise connectivity and adoption insight drawn from his Goldman Sachs network, helping portfolio companies navigate how large organizations evaluate and implement new technologies ⁵.

The broader stated mission was to back “transformative founders” working to reshape large, regulated, or monopoly-controlled industries — particularly in consumer marketplaces, on-demand labor, and platform businesses ¹².

Inferred Thesis

Based on 21 verified firm-level investments (sourced from press, Crunchbase references, and the Fortune/TechCrunch fund announcements), the following patterns emerge. Note: Sherpa Capital managed three distinct vehicles with different mandates, and several investments (Uber, Airbnb, Slack) were held across multiple funds.

Sector breakdown (21 verified investments): - On-demand/marketplace: 8 of 21 (38%) — Uber, Postmates, Munchery, Shyp, Cargomatic, BackOps/HireAthena, Rent the Runway, Ipsy - Consumer/DTC: 3 of 21 (14%) — Airbnb, Ipsy, Rent the Runway (some overlap with above) - Enterprise/productivity: 2 of 21 (10%) — Slack, Quip (acquired by Salesforce) - Healthcare/pharma: 3 of 21 (14%) — PillPack, Zendrive, Cue Health - Fintech: 1 of 21 (5%) — Robinhood - Logistics: 2 of 21 (10%) — Shyp, Cargomatic (some overlap) - Deep tech/frontier: 2 of 21 (10%) — SpaceX, Hyperloop One

Note: Sector overlap is significant because many on-demand companies span multiple categories. Sample represents approximately 22% of the claimed 93+ exits and broader portfolio. Percentages should be interpreted with caution given limited sample.

Stage distribution: Sherpa Ventures Fund I was primarily seed-to-Series-B. Sherpa Ventures Fund II continued this early-stage focus. Sherpa Everest was explicitly a mid-to-growth-stage vehicle, holding positions in companies like Uber (Series E), Ipsy, Slack, and Rent the Runway at announcement time ⁸. The firm’s strategy description of “track and invest” confirms the intention to double down at A/B rounds on companies first identified at seed ⁷.

Geographic concentration: Heavily San Francisco Bay Area-based. Verified portfolio companies are predominantly SF-headquartered with some New York exposure (Rent the Runway, DraftKings) and a few outside traditional hubs.

Check sizes: Sherpa Ventures Fund I led a $25 million commitment to Munchery’s Series B, suggesting meaningful check sizes at the lead/co-lead level ¹⁸. Sherpa Capital led Zendrive’s $13.5 million Series A in 2016, suggesting smaller lead checks for less prominent companies ¹⁹. Sherpa Ventures II at $172 million implies typical checks of $2–10 million at entry, with reserves for follow-on.

Founder profiles: The clearest pattern in the portfolio is founders building platforms in regulated, incumbent-dominated industries. Both Uber (transportation regulation) and Airbnb (hospitality/zoning regulation) fit this pattern precisely. Hyperloop One (Pishevar as co-founder) is an extreme case — building the regulatory framework itself, not just navigating it.

Co-investor patterns: Limited data, but Sherpa Ventures Fund I co-invested with TPG Capital (which provided an early $15 million anchor investment in the first fund) ⁶. Airbnb’s Series D included 137 Ventures, TPG, and Dragoneer Investment Group as co-investors alongside Sherpa Capital ²⁰. Zendrive’s round included Nyca Partners, Thomvest Ventures, First Round Capital, BMW i Ventures, and Fontinalis Partners ¹⁹.

Notable gaps vs. stated thesis: Despite “regulatory arbitrage” rhetoric, the portfolio includes pure enterprise software companies (Slack, Quip, OpenGov) that do not fit the regulatory disruption narrative. The Sherpa Everest vehicle’s holdings (beauty subscription Ipsy, fashion rental Rent the Runway) suggest that mid-stage growth investing — rather than regulatory arbitrage — was the operative Everest thesis. The stated thesis appears more descriptive of Pishevar’s personal investment philosophy than a systematic firm-wide screen.

Portfolio

This table represents 21 verified investments out of 93+ claimed exits and a broader claimed portfolio of 200+ startups. The firm managed three vehicles (Sherpa Ventures Fund I, Sherpa Ventures Fund II, Sherpa Everest Fund). Most years marked without ~ are sourced from press announcements; others are approximated from known fundraising timelines. The analysis is limited by the inability to access Crunchbase or PitchBook profiles at scale.

In Their Own Words

On the regulatory arbitrage thesis — Shervin Pishevar, Fortune interview, August 2017: “The other thing has to do with concepts we’ve coined, called regulatory arbitrage and adjacent subsidization.” ¹⁷

Illustrating adjacent subsidization with Uber — Pishevar, Fortune interview, August 2017: “An example of that would be Uber Black and UberX. Uber Black subsidizes the cheaper version — whether it’s Uber Pool or UberX — and allows it to be more affordable for people.” ¹⁷

On Sherpa Capital’s investment philosophy — Pishevar, as quoted in the Sherpa Capital Wikipedia article: “stasis and monopolies are interesting, because if you can break them, you unlock a tremendous amount of economic value and job creation.” ¹

On Zendrive’s safety technology — Pishevar, Fortune, February 2016: “This team has introduced the first significant driver and passenger safety innovation since airbags.” ¹⁹

On Scott Stanford’s approach to founder selection — Stanford, as quoted in 2020 podcast: “Frankly, we’re crazy. So it’s the pot calling the kettle black. Like if you look at what we do on our weekends and our free time, it’s what we do during the workday. Like we are obsessed with technology or coding… And so when we find founders that have that genuine passion, we get really excited.” ²³

On portfolio construction — Stanford, on the role of failure in early-stage venture: “By definition, half of our investments are going to fail. If fewer than half fail or fewer than 40% fail, we’re not doing our job right because we’re not taking enough risk, because the way early-stage venture works is you have one or two successes in the portfolio and that makes the success of the fund.” ²³

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Sherpa Capital’s public materials do not include attributed founder testimonials, and searches did not surface podcast transcripts or press interviews in which portfolio company founders discussed their experience working with Sherpa Capital or its partners.

Sources