In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships, which invest in and restructure private companies. A private-equity fund is both a type of ownership of assets and is a class of assets, which function as modes of financial management for operating private companies that are not publicly traded in a stock exchange.
Venture capital is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth. 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 risky 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. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS, FREng, FInstP, CPhys is an Austrian entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England.
A private equity fund is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity. Private equity funds are typically limited partnerships with a fixed term of 10 years. At inception, institutional investors make an unfunded commitment to the limited partnership, which is then drawn over the term of the fund. From the investors' point of view, funds can be traditional or asymmetric.
Anne Margaret Glover, is CEO and co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in European high-technology companies. Prior to founding Amadeus in 1997, she was with Apax Partners & Company Ventures, where she was a member of the investment team. She has been a business angel, investing in UK-based information technology start-ups. Glover worked for Virtuality Group plc, where she was COO of the virtual reality peripherals company.
Doug Richard is an American entrepreneur best known for his television appearances in the United Kingdom. He appeared as a "Dragon" on the first two series of Dragons' Den and was also a government adviser.
An Entrepreneur in residence, or Executive in residence (EIR), is a position most often held by successful entrepreneurs in venture capital firms, private equity firms, startup accelerators, law firms or business schools. The EIR typically leads, or has led, a small, early-stage, emerging company deemed to have high-growth potential, or which has demonstrated high growth in its number of employees, annual revenue, or both. An institutional fund may provide an entrepreneur in residence, or executive in residence, with the working capital to nurture expansion, new-product development, or restructuring of a company's operations, management, or ownership.
Christopher Sacca is an American venture investor, company advisor, entrepreneur, and lawyer. He is the proprietor of Lowercase Capital, a venture capital fund in the United States that has invested in seed and early-stage technology companies such as Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Twilio, and Kickstarter, investments that resulted in his placement as No. 2 on Forbes' Midas List: Top Tech Investors for 2017. Sacca held several positions at Google Inc., where he led the alternative access and wireless divisions and worked on mergers and acquisitions. Between 2015 and 2020, he appeared as a "Guest Shark" on ABC's Shark Tank. In early 2017, Sacca announced that he was retiring from venture investing.In 2021, Sacca announced that he was back into venture investing with a focus on Climate issues.
An angel investor is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.
U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a venture capital investment firm specializing in early-stage ventures in enterprise software, cybersecurity, consumer, e-commerce, healthcare, and IT-enabled healthcare services. The venture capital partnership is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Since its inception in 1981, USVP has invested over $4.3 billion across a wide range of sectors. Out of the 520 companies financed by USVP, 93 have completed an initial public offering.
David Douglas Cleevely, CBE, FREng, FIET is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK.
The Band of Angels was the first high technology specific angel investment group in the United States. Today the group remains very active with more than 160 members who invest their time and money into high tech startup companies. Band members have founded companies such as Cirrus Logic, Symantec, SunPower, National Semiconductor and Logitech, and have been senior executive officers at top Silicon Valley companies including Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, Intel, 3Com and Intuit. Numerous articles have been written about the Band, appearing in periodicals such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Upside, Red Herring, Der Spiegel, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes. The Band has also been featured in two Harvard Business School case studies.
Tech Coast Angels is the leading source of funding to early-stage companies in Southern California. TCA has over 450 members and is also one of the largest angel networks in the world. An analysis by CB Insights ranked TCA No.1 out of 370 angel groups on “Network Centrality” and No. 5 overall in “Investor Mosaic.”
Maveron is an American venture capital firm that invests in consumer-only and early-stage companies, with offices in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California. The firm was co-founded by Dan Levitan and former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz in 1998.
Blumberg Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs to innovate and build technology companies. The firm specializes in leading Seed and Series A rounds collaborating with angel investors, other venture capital firms and strategic partners. Blumberg Capital is headquartered in San Francisco with team members in Tel Aviv, Miami, and New York. Blumberg Capital was founded in 1991 by David J. Blumberg. The firm's investments typically range from $500,000 to $5-million with additional amounts reserved for follow-on funding.
Seedcamp is a European seed-stage venture capital fund, headquartered in London, launched in May 2007 by a group of 30 European investors. The fund's Managing Partners are Reshma Sohoni and Carlos Espinal.
Sherry Coutu CBE is a serial entrepreneur, former CEO, angel investor and non-executive director based in Cambridge, UK and originally from Canada.
Peter Cowley is a tech entrepreneur, angel investor and speaker based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is Investment Director at Martlet, the Corporate Angel division of Marshall of Cambridge. and was President of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN)
Jennifer Fonstad is an American venture capital investor and entrepreneur. She co-founded and leads the Owl Capital Group, a venture firm based in Silicon Valley. Fonstad has been a leading technology, healthcare, and energy investor for almost 25 years with 17 years as a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). She is also co-founder of angel investing network Broadway Angels. Fonstad has been recognized as a top 100 tech investor on Forbes’ Midas List twice and was named 2016 Venture Capitalist of the Year by Deloitte. She is also a Founding Member of All Raise.
Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.
