Cisco launches early-stage investment firm headed by former NEA partner Jon Sakoda

Cisco Systems Inc. today launched Decibel, a new, early-stage venture capital firm that will run independently from the networking giant. Decibel is led by former New Enterprise Associates general partner Jon Sakoda, who quit the venture capital firm in May 2018 and struck out several months later to raise as much as $500 million for a new fund. Cisco is Decibel’s founding investor and largest limited partner, although it’s still unclear exactly how much money the San Jose-based networking company has invested in the fund or how much Sakoda has raised so far, CNBC reports.“On the ground all entrepreneurs will tell you that the early road to success is unrelentingly steep and unpaved, competition is as fierce as ever, and founders have never felt more strongly that they need investors that are meaningfully involved and offer more than just money if they are going to build a sustainable company,” Sakoda wrote on Decibel's blog. He added: “I was fortunate to find in Cisco a leadership team and company that shared the same vision. Together, we took a clean sheet of paper and imagined what the entrepreneur of the future would want from an early stage investor, and asked ourselves how we could evolve the conventional venture capital and corporate investing models to create a unique and differentiated investment firm.”