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.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth continues to be managed by co-founder John Fisher and co-founders Mark Bailey, Randy Glein, and Barry Schuler.
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.
A. Nathaniel ("Nat") Goldhaber is an American venture capitalist, computer entrepreneur and politician. Goldhaber helped found Maharishi International University and was special assistant to lieutenant governor William Scranton III and founder and chief executive of TOPS, a computer networking company. He served as president of the venture capital firm Cole Gilburne Goldhaber & Ariyoshi Management and was the founding CEO of CyberGold, an Internet marketing company that became a public stock offering in 1999. He was the 2000 U.S. vice president candidate for the Natural Law Party and serves as the managing director of Claremont Creek Ventures, an investment firm.
Timothy Cook Draper is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Draper University, Draper Venture Network, and Draper Associates. Since 2019, he is a partner in Draper Goren Holm. His most prominent investments include Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, DocuSign, Coinbase, Robinhood, Ancestry.com, Twitch, Cruise Automation, PrettyLitter and Focus Media. In July 2014, Draper received wide coverage for his purchase at a US Marshals Service auction of seized bitcoins from the Silk Road website. Draper is a proponent of Bitcoin and decentralization. Draper was also one of the first investors in Theranos.
Ronald Terry Burr is an American Internet and media entrepreneur, based in Los Angeles, CA. He is the holder of nine internet patents and the co-founder and original chief executive officer of NetZero. During his career he has created over $1 Billion in value for shareholders. Burr was named by InfoWorld as one of the Top 50 IT executives at xSP's, by Interactive Week as one of the 25 Top Unsung Hero's of the Net and was a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award. Burr was also the chief executive officer of online advertising company WebVisible, Inc. until its closure in 2011 due to unpaid debts.
Barry Martin Schuler is an American Internet entrepreneur and former chairman and CEO of America Online Inc. He is best known for leading the AOL team that simplified the online service provider's user interface, making it possible for millions of consumers to gain easy access to the Internet.
Draper Triangle Ventures is a Pittsburgh based venture capital firm.
Redpoint Ventures is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in seed, early and growth-stage companies.
Draper Richards is a private equity firm focused on venture capital investments in U.S. technology companies. The firm was founded in 1996 by Bill Draper, an early venture capitalist who had previously founded Sutter Hill Ventures, and Robin Richards Donohoe. The firm invests principally on behalf of the Draper Richards Foundation, a non profit organization.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a venture capital firm.
Scott Harris Lenet is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of two venture capital firms: the corporate venture capital firm Touchdown Ventures and the seed stage venture capital firm DFJ Frontier.
Mimeo.com, Inc. is a privately held Print on demand and digital distribution document company. It was the first to offer online printing and overnight delivery of complex documents and marketing materials. The company refers to itself as a technology company that prints. Customers utilize a proprietary online workflow connected to multiple print production, warehouse and distribution centers. Customers include small, mid-sized and large companies. The company was named after the Mimeograph. Printing and distribution centers are located in Memphis, Tennessee, Berlin, Germany and Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England.
The Alchemist Accelerator is a venture-backed accelerator focused on the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises. Alchemist's backers include Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, Siemens, GE, and Salesforce, among others. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures per year.
Josh Stein is an American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a managing partner at Threshold Ventures and was featured in the Forbes Midas List in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in recognition of his accomplishments as an investor. He was also the recipient of the 2015 Deloitte Fast 500 Venture Capitalist of the Year award. Stein holds board responsibilities at Box (company), Chartbeat, LaunchDarkley, LendKey, Lumity, and Talkdesk—and led Box’s first round of institutional investment. He is also an investor in AngelList, Doximity, Front, Loftium, Periscope Data acquired by Sisense, and Rippling.
Dr. Finian Tan is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, the founder and chairman of Vickers Venture Partners. It is an international venture capital firm with a presence in Singapore, Shanghai, New York, Hong Kong, San Diego, San Francisco, and Kuala Lumpur. Before he started Vickers, Tan was Managing Director, and head of the Credit Suisse First Boston (“CSFB”) group of banks in Singapore and Malaysia, a role he took on after leaving his position as the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson Planet for Asia, where he made an early investment in Chinese tech giant Baidu.
Janrain, sometimes styled as JanRain, is a customer profile and identity management (CIAM) software provider based in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was established in 2002. Akamai acquired Janrain in January 2019.
Jennifer Fonstad is an American venture capital investor and entrepreneur. She is the managing partner and a co-founder of the Owl Capital Group, a venture firm based in Silicon Valley. Fonstad was Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) for 17 years. 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.
VinaCapital is one of the largest investment management firms in Vietnam. As of 2023, the firm has more than $3.9 billion in assets under management.
Molten Ventures, formerly Draper Esprit, is a venture capital firm, investing in high growth technology companies with global ambitions, with offices in London, Cambridge and Dublin. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
