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 firms 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.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. 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 the existing DFJ Growth partner team.
Soros Fund Management, LLC is a private American investment management firm. It is currently structured as a family office, but formerly as a hedge fund. The firm was founded in 1970 by George Soros and, in 2010, was reported to be one of the most profitable firms in the hedge fund industry, averaging a 20% annual rate of return over four decades. It is headquartered at 250 West 55th Street in New York.
Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups.
Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over $80 billion in assets under management and invests in a range of sectors including retail, industrial manufacturing, energy, financial services, health care, technology, media, and real estate. Warburg Pincus is a growth investor. Warburg Pincus has raised 21 private equity funds which have invested over $100 billion in over 1,000 companies in 40 countries.
EQT AB Group is a global investment organization founded in 1994. Its funds invest in private equity, infrastructure, real estate, growth equity, and venture capital in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific.
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2017, the firm, including its various predecessors, have raised approximately $51 billion (USD) since 1981. Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis, ranked the fifteenth largest private equity firm globally.
Silver Lake is an American global private equity firm focused on investments in technology, technology-enabled and related industries. Founded in 1999, the firm is one of the largest technology investors in the world. Its investment holdings have included Airbnb, Alibaba Group, Ancestry.com, Broadcom, Credit Karma, City Football Group, Dell Technologies, Endeavor, Expedia Group, Fanatics, First Advantage, Global Blue, GoDaddy, Jio, Lightbox, Motorola Solutions, NortonLifeLock, Red Ventures, Sabre Corporation, Skype, SoFi, GLG, Seagate Technology, SolarWinds, TEG, Twitter, Unity Technologies, Waymo, Weld North Education, WP Engine, Vacasa, the A-League football competition in Australia, and ZPG. Silver Lake is headquartered in Silicon Valley, and has offices in New York, London and Hong Kong.
First Solar, Inc. is an American manufacturer of solar panels, and a provider of utility-scale PV power plants and supporting services that include finance, construction, maintenance and end-of-life panel recycling. First Solar uses rigid thin-film modules for its solar panels, and produces CdTe panels using cadmium telluride (CdTe) as a semiconductor. The company was founded in 1990 by inventor Harold McMaster as Solar Cells, Inc. and the Florida Corporation in 1993 with JD Polk. In 1999 it was purchased by True North Partners, LLC, who rebranded it as First Solar, Inc.
Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's The Screen Savers. From 2012 to 2015, he was a venture partner at GV.
Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Heavily promoted as a leader in the Clean Energy sector for its unusual technology, Solyndra was not able to compete with conventional solar panel manufacturers of crystalline silicon.
Lightspeed Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed invests in seed, early and growth-stage companies.
SolarEdge is an Israeli company that develops and sells solar inverters for photovoltaic arrays, energy generation monitoring software, battery energy storage products, as well as other related products and services to residential, commercial and industrial customers. Established in 2006, the company also has offices in Germany, Italy, Japan, and United States. It is incorporated in Delaware. The company was the first to successfully commercialize power optimizers, a device that offers module-level maximum power point tracking (MPPT), before feeding back the electricity generated into a central inverter.
TrueCar, Inc. is an automotive pricing and information website for new and used car buyers. The service allows users to see what others paid for any new or used vehicle in their local area and receive upfront prices from a network of over 15,000 TrueCar Certified Dealers. TrueCar is paid by dealerships so they can be introduced to and communicate with potential new and used car buyers. TrueCar reports its users purchase approximately 1 million cars from dealers in its network each year. The company is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, with a sales office Austin, TX.
SoloPower is a solar energy company developing and manufacturing Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) Thin-film flexible Photo-voltaic Solar Panels. The company uses a special electroplating technology to utilize nearly 100% of its materials.
True North Venture Partners is an American venture capital firm, based in Chicago, Illinois and Phoenix, Arizona. The founder, managing partner and chairman is Michael J. Ahearn, who is also the co-founder and chairman of First Solar.
PJT Partners, Inc. is a global advisory-focused investment bank, founded in October 2015 as part of The Blackstone Group's spin-off of its financial and strategic advisory services businesses. The firm was founded by Paul J Taubman after his 30-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, where he served as Global Head of Mergers and Acquisitions, Global Head of Investment Banking and until the end of 2012, Co-President of the Institutional Securities Group, which included Investment Banking as well as Sales and Trading.
Martín Casado is a Spanish-born American software engineer, entrepreneur, and investor. He is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and was a pioneer of software-defined networking, and a co-founder of Nicira Networks.
Cyan Banister is an American angel investor and entrepreneur. She is a partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. She was an early investor in Uber, Niantic, Postmates, DeepMind, Carta, Thumbtack, Flexport, Affirm, and SpaceX, and co-founded Zivity, an adult-themed social networking site. Banister was the first woman investing partner at the venture capital Founders Fund, where she led seed and early-stage investments.
Sara T. Brand is an American business executive. She is the founder of True Wealth Ventures and co-founder of (512) Brewing Company.
