Floodgate Fund

Last updated
Floodgate Fund
Company typeVenture fund
Industry Finance
FoundedMarch 2010 (as Floodgate Fund) [1]
Founder
  • Mike Maples Jr.
  • Ann Miura-Ko
Website floodgate.com

Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm based in the United States created by Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura-Ko. It was originally named Maples Investments, but was renamed Floodgate Fund in March 2010. [1] It is focused on investments in technology companies in Silicon Valley.

Contents

Investments

Mike Maples at South by Southwest in 2017 Mike Maples (Floodgate) @ SXSW 2017 (33547017445).jpg
Mike Maples at South by Southwest in 2017

In October 2021, Floodgate raised $146 million for its seventh fund. In previous years, their sixth fund closed at $131 million, their fifth fund closed at $76 million, the fourth fund closed at $75 million and their third fund at $73.5 million. [2]

Floodgate has invested in a number of companies [3] including Twitter, Digg, location-based services company Gowalla, professional networking service BranchOut, [4] [5] Chegg, Formstack, Milk Inc., [6] TaskRabbit, [7] self-storage marketplace SpareFoot, [8] and seasteading platform company Blueseed. [9]

As of 2017, they've also invested in Lyft, Refinery29, LabDoor, education startup MissionU, legal discovery startup, TextIQ, Okta [10] and Rappi. [2] Floodgate was also an early investor in Applied Intuition, a software company for autonomous vehicles.

Pattern Breakers

In July of 2024, Mike Maples Jr and co-author, Peter Ziebelman, published the best-selling book, Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-ups Change The Future. Based on extensive research and real-world examples, the book upends accepted wisdom about how to achieve outlier success when launching a start-up or creating a new product. The book introduces new concepts like "Inflection Theory" and "Stress Tests", both of which are foundational to Floodgate's investment philosophy.

Media coverage

Floodgate Fund and Mike Maples have been covered in TechCrunch [1] and Forbes . [11] Mike Maples of Floodgate was also interviewed about his investment philosophy by Sarah Lacy for TechCrunch TV. [12]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Arrington, Michael (2010-03-24). "Mike Maples Goes Pro As A Venture Capitalist, Launches FLOODGATE". TechCrunch .
  2. 1 2 "Floodgate closes sixth fund with $131 million – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 2 March 2017. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  3. ↑ "Companies". Floodgate. Archived from the original on 2012-12-03. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  4. ↑ Schoenfeld, Erick (2010-09-17). "Facebook Job-Hunting App BranchOut Raises $6 Million From Accel And Super Angels". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  5. ↑ Klein, Julie (2011-05-11). "Deals & More: BranchOut grabs $18M to help you job hunt on Facebook". VentureBeat . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  6. ↑ Lacy, Sarah (2011-04-26). "Milk Completes $1.5 Million Angel Round, Packed with Valley Names". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  7. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (2011-05-04). "TaskRabbit Gets $5M From Shasta Ventures, First Round And Others To Help People Get Stuff Done". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  8. ↑ "FLOODGATE Backs SpareFoot". 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2013-08-13.
  9. ↑ Banister, Cyan (2012-12-13). "Mike Maples Gets On Board Blueseed's Sea Platform". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2012-12-13.
  10. ↑ "Okta unveils $50M in-house venture capital fund". TechCrunch . 2019-04-03.
  11. ↑ Cohan, Peter (2012-12-11). "How Mike Maples, Jr. Became One Of Silicon Valley's Great Investors". Forbes . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
  12. ↑ Lacy, Sarah (2011-03-08). "Mike Maples: Why I Don't Go for the Flip and the Three Deals that Got Away (TCTV)". TechCrunch . Retrieved 2012-12-14.
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