Deborah A. Farrington

Co-Founder and Managing Partner

Deborah Farrington is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of StarVest Partners LP, a New York City based venture capital firm investing in technology-enabled business services with a focus on software-as-a-service (“SaaS”), data & analytics and internet marketing. Founded in 1998, it is one of the largest women majority-owned venture capital firms in the US. She is an experienced public and private company director, having chaired or served on all major board committees, and has in depth experience in software, investing, corporate finance and scaling companies.

StarVest was an early investor in the software-as-a-service sector. The firm was the first and primary venture investor in NetSuite in 2000: it had $100,000 in revenues when Debby joined the board and became the leading SaaS company in enterprise resource planning (“ERP”), growing to $1 billion in revenue. Debby was Lead Director and Chairman of the Compensation Committee of NetSuite, Inc. (NYSE: N), from its IPO in 2007 to its acquisition for $9.4 billion by Oracle in November 2016. She was also a member of NetSuite’s Audit, Nominating & Governance, Corporate Development and Transactions Committees. Additional notable StarVest investments include: in enterprise SaaS –Host Analytics (sold to Vector Capital); in human capital management – Fieldglass (sold to SAP), Snag Holdings (the leading platform for hourly workers in service industries) and ConveyIQ (sold to Entelo); in security – Veracode (sold to CA Technologies); in payments – Transactis (sold to Mastercard); in internet marketing – iCrossing (sold to Hearst), MessageOne (sold to Dell) and CrowdTwist (sold to Oracle); and logistics – Newgistics (sold to PE firm). Representing StarVest, she is a board member of Ramp, Snag Holdings and Xignite and an Observer for Planful (formerly Host Analytics). She has served on over 25 private and public boards. 

Ms. Farrington is a Director and Chair of the Governance Committee of NCR, Inc. (NYSE: NCR) and a member of its Risk Committee;  a Director, Chair of the Corporate Governance & Nominating Committee and a member of the Audit Committee of Ceridian HCM Holding Inc (NYSE: CDAY); a Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of RedBall Acquisition Corp, the first SPAC to focus on professional sports franchises; and a Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT), as well as a member of its Audit Committee.

She has been on the Forbes Midas 100 List of top venture capitalists’ multiple times and was the top woman on the list in 2008 and 2011. She was a Finalist in Finance for the World Technology Awards. In 2018, Ms. Farrington was awarded The Foreign Policy Association Centennial Medal for Achievement in Financial Services.

Prior to founding StarVest, she was President & CEO of private equity firm Victory Ventures, LLC; Managing Director of Asian Oceanic Group based in New York and Hong Kong; and an investment banker and Division Director of Merrill Lynch International in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. She began her career at The Chase Manhattan Bank as a credit analyst.

She is a graduate and Trustee of Smith College where she chairs the Smith College Investment Committee with responsibility for overseeing Smith’s $2 billion endowment. She holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where she has endowed a “Fellowship for Women Entrepreneurs” and served on the Visiting Committee and Alumni Board. She is a board member of the HBS Club of New York where she chaired their annual leadership dinner. She has served on the New Ventures Advisory Council of McKinsey & Company, the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Advisory Board of WQXR, NPR’s classical music station. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum, the Economic Club of New York and the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.