Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.
Stephen T. Jurvetson is an American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. Formerly a partner of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), he was an early investor in Hotmail, Memphis Meats, Mythic and Nervana Systems. He is currently a board member of SpaceX among others. He later co-founded the firm Future Ventures with Maryanna Saenko, who worked with him at DFJ.
Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.
Reid Garrett Hoffman is an American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, and author. Hoffman is the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking. He is also chairman of venture capital firm Village Global and a co-founder of Inflection AI.
Jeff Stibel is an entrepreneur, having started numerous technology and marketing companies, and a venture capital investor, as co-founder of Bryant Stibel.
Jerry Colonna is an American venture capitalist and professional coach who played a prominent part in the early development of Silicon Valley. Colonna has been named to Upside magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the New Economy, Forbes ASAP's list of the best VCs in the country, and Worth's list of the 25 most generous young Americans. He is a co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company, Reboot. He is the host of the Reboot Podcast. He also serves as chairman on the Board of Trustees at Naropa University.
Fred Wilson is an American businessman, venture capitalist and blogger. Wilson is the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm with investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga, Kickstarter, Etsy and MongoDB.
Semyon Dukach is an American entrepreneur and former professional blackjack player. He is the founding partner of One Way Ventures, a venture capital fund that backs immigrant entrepreneurs.
Revolution LLC is an American investment firm based in Washington, D.C., founded in 2005 by AOL co-founder Steve Case, after leaving the AOL Time Warner board. The firm seeks to fund entrepreneurs who are transforming legacy industries with innovative products and services, with an overarching focus on companies that are based outside of the coastal tech hubs of New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. Through the firm's Rise of the Rest platform, it has developed a network of business and civic relationships that helps Revolution source investments and support existing companies as they seek to expand across the country. Notable investments include LivingSocial, Zipcar, DraftKings, and sweetgreen.
J. H. Whitney & Company is a venture-capital firm in the U.S., founded in 1946 by partners John Hay Whitney and Benno Schmidt. Today, the firm focuses primarily on leveraged buyouts, turnarounds, acquisitions, and recapitalizations of more mature companies, particularly those it considers to be in the middle market. The firm is based in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Wenceslao Casares, also known as Wences Casares is an Argentinian entrepreneur and businessman in Silicon Valley-based fintech. He is the CEO of Xapo Bank, and founded Internet Argentina, Wanako Games, Patagon, Lemon Wallet, and Banco Lemon. Casares sits on the boards of PayPal, Diem, and Endeavor.
Matt Cohler is an American venture capitalist. He worked as Vice President of Product Management for Facebook until June 2008 and was formerly a general partner at Benchmark. Cohler has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top technology investors and in 2019 was named to the New York Times and CB Insights list of top 10 venture capital investors. Cohler made the Forbes 'America's 40 Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40' list in 2015.
Julie Marie Meyer MBE is an American businesswoman and the author of Welcome to Entrepreneur Country. She is the sole director of Viva Investment Partners. She founded Ariadne Capital Limited and Ariadne Capital Malta Limited, and was a co-founder of the networking forum First Tuesday. In 2009, Meyer was a guest on the online edition of the Dragons' Den TV series.
Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.
John Joseph D'Agostino is an American business executive and entrepreneur. D'Agostino is a senior advisor to Coinbase and Chairman of US Asset Management Committee for the Department for International Trade. He previously was Managing Director at the world's largest fund governance firm DMS Offshore, where he was also on the board of hedge funds providing independent oversight. He was previously a managing director at Alkeon Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar registered investment adviser. Prior to this, D'Agostino was known primarily for his involvement in the early development of the Dubai Mercantile Exchange. In 2021, Mr. D'Agostino co-founded the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) Digital Asset Working Group. He was named Fellow of the AIF Global Innovation Institute in 2022. D'Agostino has been on the board of Surf Air, an aviation and air charter company since 2018.
Aneel Bhusri is an American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Workday. He is also a partner at Greylock Partners and was a member of Intel's board of directors between 2014 and 2019. Bhusri has been a billionaire since 2014; as of 2021 he has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
Shervin Kordary Pishevar is an Iranian-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, super angel investor, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Hyperloop One and a co-founder and managing director of Sherpa Capital, a venture capital fund which has invested in companies including Airbnb, Uber, GoPuff, Cue Health, Slack, Robinhood, Munchery and Postmates.
Patrick James McGinnis is an American venture capitalist and author. He is best known for coining the term "fear of missing out" (FOMO), which he first used in an op-ed for The Harbus in 2004 while studying at the Harvard Business School. In 2016, he published a book entitled The 10% Entrepreneur: Live Your Startup Dream Without Quitting Your Day Job.
