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.
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.
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.
Airware was an American venture-funded startup that provided commercial unmanned aerial vehicles for enterprises. The company ceased operations on September 14, 2018.
UST, formerly known as UST GLOBAL, is a provider of digital technology and transformation, information technology and services, headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Stephen Ross founded UST in 1998 in Laguna Hills. The company has offices in the Americas, EMEA, APAC, and India.
Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successful investments include Affirm, DoorDash, Square, Impossible Foods, Instacart, and OpenAI.
Francisco Partners Management, L.P., doing business as Francisco Partners, is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City.
Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as the "practice where a large firm takes an equity stake in a small but innovative or specialist firm, to which it may also provide management and marketing expertise; the objective is to gain a specific competitive advantage." Examples of CVCs include GV and Intel Capital.
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.
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.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the world's largest venture capital firms.
Sandbox Industries is a venture capital firm located in Chicago. The firm focuses on connecting established corporations with disruptive startups via strategic corporate investment funds.
Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, software, and services targeting artificial intelligence, autonomous technology, data center and cloud, 5G, next-generation compute, semiconductor manufacturing and other technologies.
OurCrowd is an online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies at an early stage while still privately held. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, and has since opened overseas branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE.
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.
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.
Sierra Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in San Mateo, California. It targets startups in sectors including enterprise tech, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and healthcare.
Qualcomm Ventures is the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated. Founded in 2000, Qualcomm Ventures is a corporate venture capital fund with 140+ active portfolio companies. Investing in startups targeting the wireless ecosystem, the group focuses on investments in the sectors of automotive, data center and enterprise, digital health, Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile.
Canaan Partners (Canaan) is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut with offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park and New York City. The firm focuses on investing in early stage companies in the technology and healthcare industries. Since 2014, the firm has also been investing in technology companies based in Israel.
