into the unknown

Stephan Eberle has always been willing to take a risk and try something new—a quality that comes in handy in his work at venture capital firm Scale Venture Partners

By Sara Deeter

Stephan Eberle General Counsel and Head of Limited Partner Relations Scale Venture Partners

Good in-house counsel efficiently and expertly execute on legal tasks. Great in-house counsel know what it takes to learn something new.

Stephan Eberle has never shied away from learning new things at Scale Venture Partners, where he provides both the legal and the business guidance necessary to build the company into an industry leader. As general counsel and head of limited partner relations, Eberle’s flair for business and legal finesse help position the firm at the forefront of one of the most competitive industries in the world.

Eberle started out as a commercial litigator after graduating from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1993. But after six years in the field, Eberle transitioned in-house. “I wanted to build things, not fight over them,” Eberle explains. “Litigation was very interesting and taught me many of the skills I use to this day, but I needed to try something different.”

In 1999, Eberle accepted an in-house position at the SVB Financial Group & Silicon Valley Bank, where he worked on commercial transactions as well as litigation and product development. “I only expected to be there for a couple years,” Eberle notes. “But there were so many great opportunities that came up while I was there that I ended up staying for more than a decade and a half.”

During Eberle’s seventeen-year tenure at the Silicon Valley giant, he rose from counsel to deputy general counsel and gained a broad range of experience in legal matters as well as areas like people management and mentoring, strategic investing, mergers and acquisitions, global expansion, and risk management. He also played an integral role in founding the company’s venture capital investing program.

“One of Silicon Valley Bank’s leaders, who eventually became CEO, called me up one day and said, ‘We’re looking at potentially setting up some venture funds. Would you be interested?’ I had never done something like that before, but I was very interested, and the venture capital platform soon became an important part of the business,” Eberle recalls. “You can’t be afraid of the unknown, especially in this field. Lawyers are smart people—good at reading, analyzing, interpreting, and then applying. And that’s exactly what it takes to learn something new.”

It was that willingness to embrace the unknown, in addition to his extensive legal experience, that molded Eberle into a great candidate for the general counsel role at Scale Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that works with technology companies focusing on business and enterprise software, including software as a service, cloud computing, and software and development operations technology.

“In this space, you’re in the innovation economy,” Eberle says. “You get to see all of these emerging technologies—software that powers business, including online commerce—and work with the amazing companies that are trying to develop and deploy those technologies. It’s just a fascinating part of the economy. I feel so lucky that I get to sit right in the middle of it and literally watch global business transform.”

Of course, both the technology industry and the venture capital sector are highly competitive, Eberle acknowledges—but not nearly so cutthroat as Hollywood would have us believe.

“People may not realize that venture capital is extremely collaborative,” the GC says. “Venture capital firm investing strategies can differ quite a bit, with some firms investing when a company is first starting out and other firms investing when a company is larger and getting close to an exit, like an IPO. That results in a need for venture firms to work— and invest—together during the life of a company to help build and grow a company. It also has resulted in a network of GCs for venture firms that work together collaboratively, which is a great resource.”

Scale Venture Partners, for example, primarily works with companies that are in the initial stages of revenue. As general counsel, Eberle guides his firm’s legal work on the firm’s investments in those companies while ensuring that the firm’s activities

Stephan Eberle

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are in line with current laws and regulations—and there are “always” new regulations coming out, Eberle notes.

“Part of what a GC does is operationalize those laws and regulations,” he says. “I focus on turning them into something that can be effectively and efficiently acted upon so that the business can remain compliant. That is a constant challenge because the laws in this space are constantly evolving and being interpreted.”

Eberle doesn’t mind that challenge. Far from it, especially since those challenges are balanced by the profound sense of meaning that he derives from his work as a whole.

“As head of limited partner relations, I act as the primary contact for our existing investors and also work to identify potential new investors over time,” Eberle says. “Maintaining and building deep relationships with those investors is very interesting and highly rewarding.

“I get to really understand the investors themselves, the institutions and groups they’re working with, and the reasons they’re trying to generate returns,” he continues. “We could be responsible for generating the returns that someone is depending on for their retirement, education, or health and welfare. It makes our efforts to provide solid returns for them incredibly meaningful.”