As venture investors we are often reminded about the importance of believing in a founder’s thesis more than our own. This may have been particularly true when we first met Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy with Snapchat. A disappearing photo app with nearly anonymous users that would fundamentally evolve the way people communicated socially? It was an incredible vision for cameras + messaging — two things most people thought of as simple mobile phone utilities — but Evan and Bobby understood a different potential.

A laser focus on product and experience and an acceptance that some people just won’t “get” it has earned Snap hundreds of millions of engaged users and has led to this moment. And today, we celebrate the team’s audaciousness and are forever honored that they have allowed us to be along for the ride.

When we took on the complexities of expanding to be a bi-coastal firm, companies like Snap were the opportunities we were hoping to find on the west coast: founders with a passion for building category-defining companies. We’ve been very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time to add many companies that fit that bill — Stripe, Gusto, Illumio, Airbnb, Menlo Security, Digit, Anomali, and Livongo among others — to our portfolio in the six years we’ve been here.

It’s taken a combination of hard work, timing, and optimism with a healthy dash of luck to build our presence on the west coast. With Snap as our first IPO here, we remain as enthusiastic and committed as ever to supporting brilliant entrepreneurs and continuing to build our firm on behalf of our world class investors. We could not be more grateful to Evan, Bobby, and the entire Snap team for making this possible.

Congratulations, Snap, and here’s to your continued success!