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Greylock Partners is getting another $1 billion to invest in startups. The long-time venture capital firm is announcing its 15th fund, bringing the total to $3.5 billion currently under management. <\/span><\/p>\n With 50 years of investing in the books, Greylock has backed industry leaders in the enterprise IT and consumer internet categories, including LinkedIn, Dropbox, Facebook and Airbnb. Their limited partners are betting that they will replicate some of this past success and continue to find startups that will become the next big thing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a pretty consistent strategy,\u201d Josh Elman, partner at Greylock, tells TechCrunch. The team is always looking for \u201cproducts that make people\u2019s lives better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Greylock can invest anytime from the seed round to the later stages, but they generally get involved somewhere in between. Over 95% of investments in the 14th fund were series A or B and they expect to keep\u00a0this approach for fund 15. <\/span><\/p>\n They are looking for startups at that pivotal moment when they try to multiply \u201cfrom 30 people to 1000 people,\u201d says Elman. Greylock gets involved\u00a0when teams expand \u201cfrom a small early company that\u2019s really grown large and hit some scale.\u201d The firm has recently invested in\u00a0up-and-comers like <\/span>GoFundMe<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>musical.ly<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n In addition to enterprise and consumer businesses, Greylock plans to look at \u201cemerging\u201d spaces like messaging, virtual reality, machine learning and robotics. Elman cited bots and voice products like the Amazon Echo as areas that he\u2019s particularly enthusiastic about.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet with many liked-minded firms hoping to invest in the top startups, it can be hard to stand out from the pack. With an investment team that includes LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Mozilla CEO John Lilly, Greylock hopes that its track record and experience will set them apart. <\/span><\/p>\n Like several of the top venture firms, Greylock has in-house talent partners, who help startups find employees to build out their teams. Led by Jeff Markowitz and Dan Portillo, Greylock\u2019s talent group looks for C-suite executives and potential hires who\u2019ve worked in\u00a0product, design or engineering.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Greylock approaches working with companies as a true partnership \u2013 whether that\u2019s helping with recruiting, product planning, or strategy,\u201d said Sarah Leary, co-founder of Nextdoor. Leary, who previously worked as an associate at Greylock, believes it\u2019s \u201cone of the few firms where many of the partners have been in the exact same situations that we as entrepreneurs are in<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n With over 170 IPOs and 120 \u201cprofitable\u201d acquisitions, Greylock has had numerous fruitful investments. Recent exits include <\/span>Apptio<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Pure Storage<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Quip<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>TellApart<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n