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.
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs in over 900 ventures, including America Online, Amazon.com, Tandem Computers, Compaq, Electronic Arts, JD.com, Square, Genentech, Google, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Nest, Palo Alto Networks, Synack, Snap, AppDynamics, and Twitter. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds and four growth funds.
Mayfield, also known as Mayfield Fund, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage to growth-stage investments in enterprise and consumer technology companies. Founded in 1969 and based in Menlo Park, California, it is one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture capital firms.
Founders Fund is an American venture capital fund formed in 2005 and based in San Francisco. The fund has roughly $12 billion in total assets under management as of 2023. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor in Facebook. The firm's partners have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and SpaceX.
First Round Capital is a US-based venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies.
GV Management Company, L.L.C. is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2010, the firm has operated independently of Google, Alphabet's search and advertising division, since 2015. GV invests in startup companies in a variety of fields ranging from the Internet, software, and hardware to life science, healthcare, artificial intelligence, transportation, cyber security and agriculture. It has helped finance more than 300 companies that include Uber, Nest, Slack, and Flatiron Health.
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.
500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.
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.
Parse.ly is a technology company that provides web analytics and content optimization software for online publishers. Parse.ly built three products, the Parse.ly Reader, the Parse.ly Publisher Platform, and the latest Parse.ly Dash, an analytics tool for large publishers.
Headline, formerly e.ventures and BV Capital, is a global and data-driven venture capital firm investing across stages and sectors, from Direct-to-consumer to Deep tech and Software. It was founded in 1998 in Santa Barbara, California and has since grown to invest in four different regions worldwide: United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. The firm has its headquarters in San Francisco, California, with additional offices in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; Paris, France; London, United Kingdom; Tokyo, Japan; Taipei, Taiwan and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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.
Uncork Capital is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California, founded by Jeff Clavier. Considered one of the most active established seed funds in Silicon Valley, it has invested in companies such as Postmates, Eventbrite, Fitbit, and SendGrid.
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.
Authorea is an online collaborative writing tool that allows researchers to write, cite, collaborate, host data and publish. It has been described as "Google Docs for Scientists". It has been owned by the commercial publishing company Wiley through Atypon since 2018.
Social Capital, formerly known as Social+Capital Partnership, is a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. The firm specializes in technology startups, providing seed funding, venture capital, and private equity.
Lowercase Capital was an American venture capital firm that provided seed and early-stage funding for several successful startups, including Twitter, Twilio, Kickstarter, Uber, Instagram, and Stripe. It raised over $1 billion in capital, and sources claim a return of at least $5 billion to its investors. In 2017 Chris Sacca closed the fund for new start-up investments to focus on climate action and politics. He said, however, that Lowercase Capital would continue to support the existing portfolio of investments.
Parse, Inc. was a company acquired by Meta in 2013 and shut down in January 2017. They developed a MBaaS platform, Parse. Following the announcement in 2016 of the impending shutdown, the platform was subsequently open sourced.
Andela is an American global job placement network for software developers. Andela focuses on sustainable careers, connecting technologists with long-term engagements, access to international roles, competitive compensation, and career coaching through the Andela Learning Community.
DCM (also known as DCM Ventures) is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley, Tokyo and Beijing. DCM was one of the first venture capital firms to invest in the early-stage technology sector in China, beginning in 1999. It has increasingly shifted away from Chinese investments due to US sanctions against China.
