Jesse Draper

Last updated
Jesse Draper
Jesse Draper at Web Summit 2022.jpg
Draper in 2022
Born
Jessica Cook Draper

(1986-01-05) January 5, 1986 (age 38)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Venture capitalist, TV personality
Years active1993–present
EmployerHalogen Ventures
Notable work The Naked Brothers Band , The Valley Girl Show
Spouse
Brian MacInnes
(m. 2015)
Parent
Relatives
Website halogenvc.com

Jessica Cook Draper (born January 5, 1986) is an American venture capitalist and TV personality.

Contents

Early life

Jesse Draper is the daughter of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Timothy C. Draper and Melissa Lee ( née Parker) Draper. [1] Her paternal grandfather is William Henry Draper III, former Chairman of the Export–Import Bank of the United States and her great-grandfather was banker, general, and diplomat William Henry Draper Jr. who served as the first U.S. Ambassador to NATO. [2]

Draper attended UCLA. [3]

Career

Draper began her career as an actress. Her first notable role was on the Nickelodeon series The Naked Brothers Band , which starred her cousins Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff and was created by her aunt Polly Draper. [4]

She created a technology talk web show called The Valley Girl Show which she hosted, wrote, and produced with Jonathan Polenz. [5] In May 2014, Draper signed a distribution deal with Cox Media Group to broadcast the talk show in Northern California and Seattle. [6] [7]

Venture capitalist

In 2015, Draper founded Halogen Ventures to invest in female-founded companies. She has invested in 70 companies and had 10 exits. [8]

Personal life

On June 15, 2013, Draper married accountant Brian MacInnes. [9]

Filmography

YearFilmRoleNotes
1993Broken Promises: Taking Emily Back Homeless GirlUncredited
2006 The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie Jesse Cook
American Dreams Bandstand Girl1 episode
2007–09 The Naked Brothers Band Jesse Cook40 episodes
2009Ticket OutBank Teller
2010The Mighty MacsMrs. Ballard
2012 It's a Disaster Woman with dog

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vinod Khosla</span> Indian-American businessman (born 1955)

Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by firms or funds to startup, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Draper Jr.</span> United States Army general

William Henry Draper Jr. was an American army officer, banker, government official, and diplomat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Draper III</span> American venture capitalist

William Henry Draper III is an American venture capitalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Draper Fisher Jurvetson</span> American venture capital firm

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Jurvetson</span> American entrepreneur and venture capitalist

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 and served on Tesla's board from 2006–2020, among others. He later co-founded the firm Future Ventures with Maryanna Saenko, who worked with him at DFJ.

Polly Carey Draper is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. Draper has received several awards, including a Writers Guild of America Award (WGA), and is noted for speaking in a "trademark throaty voice." She gained recognition for her starring role in the ABC drama television series Thirtysomething (1987–91).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Draper</span> American businessman

Timothy Cook Draper is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Draper University, Draper Venture Network, Draper Associates and 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.

Heidi Roizen is a Silicon Valley executive, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Valentine</span> American venture capitalist (1932–2019)

Donald Thomas Valentine was an American venture capitalist who concentrated mainly on technology companies in the United States. As the founder of Sequoia Capital, he has been referred to as the "grandfather of Silicon Valley venture capital". The Computer History Museum credited him as playing "a key role in the formation of a number of industries such as semiconductors, personal computers, personal computer software, digital entertainment and networking."

Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm formed in 2005 and 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 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.

<i>The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie</i> 2005 film by Polly Draper

The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie is a 2005 American children's musical comedy film written and directed by Polly Draper, which stars her sons, Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff, who portray members of a fictional rock group. It tells of the boys' struggles with their fame and an internal dispute that causes the band to split before reuniting in the end. The film is emboldened by Nat's band, The Silver Boulders, which he created in preschool with his friends Joshua Kaye, Thomas Batuello, and David Levi, who all act as themselves. It also includes Allie DiMeco as Nat's fictional female interest, the siblings' real-life cousin Jesse Draper as the group's babysitter, Draper's husband Michael Wolff playing his sons' widowed accordion-playing dad, and real life friends Cooper Pillot and Cole Hawkins portraying the other members of the band.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Wolff</span> American actor and musician

Alexander Draper Wolff is an American actor, musician, and filmmaker. He first gained recognition for starring alongside his older brother Nat in the Nickelodeon musical comedy series The Naked Brothers Band (2007–09), which was created by the boys' mother Polly Draper. Wolff and his brother released two soundtrack albums for the series, The Naked Brothers Band and I Don't Want to Go to School, which were co-produced by their father Michael Wolff. Subsequent to the conclusion of the Nickelodeon series, Wolff and his older brother formed a duo called Nat & Alex Wolff, and released the albums Black Sheep (2011) and Public Places (2016). The brothers also co-starred in their mother's comedy-drama film Stella's Last Weekend (2018).

<i>The Naked Brothers Band</i> (TV series) American musical comedy television series

The Naked Brothers Band is an American musical comedy television series created by Polly Draper, which aired on Nickelodeon from February 3, 2007, to June 13, 2009. It depicts the daily lives of Draper's sons, who lead a faux world-renowned children's rock band in New York City. As a mockumentary, the storyline is an embellished satire of their real lives, and the fictional presence of a camera is often acknowledged. The show stars Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff, the lead singer-songwriter and drummer, respectively. Nat's fictional female interest and real-life friends Thomas Batuello, David Levi, and Cooper Pillot, as well as Qaasim Middleton—who has no prior acquaintance with the family—are featured as the other band members, with Draper's jazz musician husband Michael Wolff as his sons' widowed accordion-playing dad and her niece Jesse Draper portraying the group's babysitter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Wolff</span> American actor, musician, and singer-songwriter

Nathaniel Marvin Wolff is an American actor and musician. He gained recognition for composing the music for The Naked Brothers Band (2007–2009), a Nickelodeon television series he starred in with his younger brother, Alex, that was created by their actress mother, Polly Draper. Wolff's jazz pianist father, Michael Wolff, coproduced the series' soundtrack albums, The Naked Brothers Band (2007) and I Don't Want to Go to School (2008), both of which ranked the 23rd spot on the Top 200 Billboard Charts.

Something Ventured is a 2011 documentary film investigating the emergence of American venture capitalism in the mid-20th century. Something Ventured follows the stories of the venture capitalists who worked with entrepreneurs to start and build companies like Apple, Intel, Genentech, Cisco, Atari, Tandem, and others, and looks at the influence of Georges Doriot. It is a full-length independent film which includes interviews with prominent American venture capitalists and entrepreneurs of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as archival photography and footage. The film has aired across the US on local PBS stations as well as on public television in Norway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blueseed</span> Startup company based on a proposed seasteading venture

Blueseed was a Silicon Valley-based startup company and a seasteading venture to create a startup community located on a vessel stationed in international waters near the coast of Silicon Valley in the United States. The intended location would enable non-U.S. startup entrepreneurs to work on their ventures without the need for a US work visa (H1B), while living in proximity to Silicon Valley and using relatively easier to obtain business and tourism visas (B1/B2) to travel to the mainland.

Women in venture capital or VC are investors who provide venture capital funding to startups. Women make up a small fraction of the venture capital private equity workforce. A widely used source for tracking the number of women in venture capital is the Midas List which has been published by Forbes since 2001. Research from Women in VC, a global community of women venture investors, shows that the percentage of female VC partners is just shy of 5 percent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Draper University</span>

Draper University, also known as Draper University of Heroes, is a private, for-profit school located in San Mateo, California, United States. Founded by venture capitalist Tim Draper in 2012, Draper University partnered with Arizona State University (ASU) in 2013 to offer students 15 course credits for a sixteen-week semester program. Prior to the partnership with ASU, the school was unaccredited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Molten Ventures</span> Venture capital firm

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.

References

  1. "Melissa Lee Parker Becomes the Bride of Timothy Cook Draper in California". The New York Times. 15 August 1982.
  2. Europa Publications (2003). The International Who's Who 2004 . Routledge. pp.  454. ISBN   1-85743-217-7.
  3. "Meet Jesse". Halogen Ventures. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  4. Laura M. Holson (June 29, 2012). "That Wacky Silicon Valley". The New York Times Company. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  5. Sacks, Danielle (June 14, 2012). "Can VCs Be Bred? Meet The New Generation In Silicon Valley's Draper Dynasty". Fast Company & Inc. Mansueto Ventures, LLC. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  6. Swisher, Kara (May 5, 2014). ""Valley Girl" Creator Jesse Draper Strikes Deal for New Talk Show With Cox". Re/code. Revere Digital LLC. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  7. "The rise of femtech: women, technology, and Trump". VentureBeat. 5 February 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-01.
  8. Zakrzewski, Cat (December 20, 2017). "Jesse Draper Closes $10 Million Fund Focused on Female Founders" . Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  9. Zinko, Carolyne (21 June 2013). "Jesse Draper, Brian MacInnes' playful love". SFGATE . Retrieved 6 January 2022.