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.
Deal flow is a term used by finance professionals such as venture capitalists, angel investors, private equity investors and investment bankers to refer to the rate at which they receive business proposals/investment offers. The term is also used not as a measure of rate, but simply to refer to the stream of offers or opportunities as a collective whole. An organization's deal flow is considered "good" if it results in enough revenue- or equity-generating opportunities to keep the organization functioning at peak capacity. For private consultants to high and ultra high net worth individuals, deal flow is called Deal Generation, which is the process of making deals with a business as the result of lead generation.
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) is an American private equity company. It is one of the oldest private equity investment firms in the world. Founded in 1978, CD&R has managed the investment of more than $30 billion in approximately 90 businesses, representing a broad range of industries with an aggregate transaction value in excess of $140 billion. Approximately half of CD&R's investments have involved corporate divestitures.
TA Associates, founded in 1968, is one of the early modern-era private equity firms in the United States. The firm leads buyouts and minority recapitalizations of profitable growth companies. TA invests across five industry groups: technology, healthcare, consumer products, financial services and business services.
Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm. Formed in 2005, Founders Fund had more than $11 billion in aggregate capital under management as of 2022. The firm invests across all stages and sectors, including aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, energy, health, and consumer Internet, with a portfolio that includes Airbnb, Lyft, Spotify, Stripe, and Oscar Health. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and one of the earliest investors in Facebook. The firm’s partners, including Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Brian Singerman, have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Google, Palantir Technologies, and SpaceX.
A series A round is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchange for their investment. It is usually the first series of stock after the common stock and common stock options issued to company founders, employees, friends and family and angel investors.
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 usually give support to start-ups at the earliest 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, as well as to provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.
Francisco Partners is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. Founded in August 1999 and based in San Francisco with offices in London and New York City, Francisco Partners Management L.P. has raised approximately US$24 billion in committed capital as of June 2020 when the firm raised nearly $10 billion for tech company investments. As of 2021, Francisco Partners had more than US$30 billion in assets under management, and invested in over 300 companies in the technology sector.
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 2009, the firm has operated independently of Google, Alphabet's search and advertising behemoth, since 2015. GV seeks to invest 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.
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on later-stage venture capital and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
AngelList is a U.S. website for startups, angel investors, and job-seekers looking to work at startups. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge.
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.
Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.
Sapphire Ventures is a venture capital firm with offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Austin, and London. The firm is considered one of the world's premier venture capital firms.
Lowercase Capital is an American venture capital firm that provided seed and early stage funding for a number of 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.
Qiming Venture Partners is a China based Venture capital firm. It primarily invests in Technology, Internet and Healthcare related companies across China. It was an early investor in ByteDance, Xiaomi, Meituan and Bilibili. According to South China Morning Post, from January 2019 to May 2020, it was the seventh most active venture capital firm in China.
Summit Partners is an American private equity firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm focuses on investing in technology, healthcare, life sciences and other growth industries.
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is an American venture capital firm headquartered in San Francisco. Outside the United States, it has offices in India, Israel and the United Kingdom. In 2022, Venture Capital Journal ranked the firm as the 8th largest venture capital firm based on total fundraising over the most recent five-year period.
