Sand Hill Road

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Sand Hill Road
Sand Hill Road Eastbound View.jpg
View of Sand Hill Road, with the Hoover Tower at Stanford University visible in the distance
Location Menlo Park, California
Palo Alto, California
Woodside, California
Coordinates 37°25′15″N122°12′29″W / 37.42082°N 122.20808°W / 37.42082; -122.20808
West endPortola Road in Woodside
Major
junctions		I-280 (1961).svg I-280
East endCalifornia 82.svg SR 82 (El Camino Real) in Palo Alto
Other
Known for Silicon Valley
Venture capitalism

Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", [1] is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital firms. [2] The road has become a metonym for that industry; nearly every top Silicon Valley company has been the beneficiary of early funding from firms on Sand Hill Road. [3]

Contents

Its significance as a symbol of private equity and venture capitalism in the United States has been compared to that of Wall Street and the stock market. [4]

Location

Connecting El Camino Real and Interstate 280, the road provides easy access to Stanford University and the northwestern area of Silicon Valley. The road also runs southwest of Interstate 280 into a residential neighborhood of Woodside, California, but the private equity companies are concentrated to the east of the freeway on the main stretch of the road in Menlo Park. On its northeast end, it crosses into and runs briefly through Palo Alto before ending at El Camino Real.

Sand Hill Road is also home to the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

History

Photograph of Sand Hill Road in December 1969, in the non-approved "Willow Expressway" proposal, which would have extended Sand Hill to connect Interstate 280 to the Dumbarton Bridge Willow Expressway- Looking towards Bay from Sand Hill Rd (1971).jpg
Photograph of Sand Hill Road in December 1969, in the non-approved "Willow Expressway" proposal, which would have extended Sand Hill to connect Interstate 280 to the Dumbarton Bridge

For many years, Sand Hill Road's northern end terminated in the middle of Stanford Shopping Center's parking lot, and the only four-lane segment was the section from Interstate 280 to Santa Cruz Avenue (the section where all the venture capitalists are housed). This situation resulted in two severe bottlenecks which made it difficult to travel to and from Stanford Shopping Center, Stanford University, and Menlo Park. [ citation needed ]

Extension and widening of the road were fiercely opposed by environmentalists, who were concerned about the road's proximity to San Francisquito Creek, and by residents of Menlo Park, who feared that completion of the road would increase traffic congestion in their area due to the mid-Peninsula region's lack of a direct north-south arterial. After three decades of lobbying, negotiation, and litigation, the road was finally completed to El Camino Real in 2001. Only the existing portion from just north of Alameda de las Pulgas to just south of Stanford Shopping Center was widened to four lanes; the new extension past the shopping center was built only as two lanes. [ citation needed ]

The bottleneck near Santa Cruz Avenue was widened in 2006 and features a 16-foot (4.9 m) high faux rock wall at the junction of Sand Hill Road and Santa Cruz Avenue. The project was delayed because the stretch of land at issue runs through Menlo Park, not Palo Alto; the city reversed its opposition to widening only after seeing the results of the widening of the northern Palo Alto segment. [5]

Venture capital

Sand Hill Road exit signage as seen by northbound traffic on Interstate 280 Sand Hill Road Freeway Exit.jpg
Sand Hill Road exit signage as seen by northbound traffic on Interstate 280

In 1972, the firm now known as Kleiner Perkins was the first venture capital firm to open an office on Sand Hill Road. [6] The stellar performance of Kleiner Perkins's first $8 million fund quickly attracted other similar firms to the Menlo Park area, resulting in "the most important cluster of venture capital firms in the world". [6] Despite this, in the mid-1970s, Kleiner Perkins began to shift operations to Downtown San Francisco, but years later moved back most of its operations to rejoin the many other venture capital firms that had put down roots around its original office location. [6] Since then, beneficiaries of funding from Sand Hill Road have included Microsoft, Amazon.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Skype. [3]

For several years during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, commercial real estate on Sand Hill Road was more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world. The annual rent in the area around Sand Hill Road peaked at around US$144 per square foot ($1550 per m2) in mid-2000; at the time, this was higher than rates in Manhattan and London's West End. [7]

In 1997, the Harvard Business School opened the California Research Center at 3000 Sand Hill Road, whose aim is to enable HBS faculty to write business cases about Silicon Valley. [8]

As of December 2014, Sand Hill Road still had the most expensive office space in the United States with annual rent reported at $111 per square foot, which was higher than Manhattan's Fifth Avenue at $102 per square foot. [3]

As of June 2022, Sand Hill Road was still home to the most expensive office space in the United States, with Newmark Group reporting monthly rent at $10.66 per square foot (equivalent to annual rent of $127.92 per square foot), which was reportedly higher than other top-tier markets like Manhattan's Park Avenue and Greenwich, Connecticut. [9] However, prices were under pressure from the shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had reduced the necessity of maintaining a physical headquarters on Sand Hill Road. [9] Other issues included the dated appearance of Sand Hill Road's 1.2 million square feet (111,480 m2) of "low-rise woody walk-ups, most of them built in the 1970s and ’80s", and their distance from the restaurants and stores of downtown Menlo Park and its Caltrain station. [9] After vacancies on Sand Hill Road peaked at around 15 percent at the end of 2020, landlords responded to these issues by renovating buildings and adding amenities like farm-to-table restaurants to justify their demands for high rent. [9]

Venture capital firms

Venture capital and private equity firms located on Sand Hill Road include:

The season two premiere episode of the HBO television series Silicon Valley , in which the show's protagonists try to secure venture capital for their startup, was titled "Sand Hill Shuffle".

In the second episode of HBO miniseries The Dropout , Elizabeth Holmes visits several venture capital firms on Sand Hill Road in the hopes of securing investment for Theranos.

In the 2010 film Birdemic: Shock and Terror , protagonist Rod visits a VC firm on Sand Hill Road to get financing for his solar energy startup.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Valley</span> Technology hub in California, United States

Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley. The term "Silicon Valley" refers to the area in which high-tech business has proliferated in Northern California, and it also serves as a general metonym for California's high-tech business sector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palo Alto, California</span> City in California, United States

Palo Alto is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menlo Park, California</span> City in California, United States

Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; and Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City to the west. It had 33,780 residents at the 2020 United States census. It is home to the corporate headquarters of Meta, and is where Google, Roblox Corporation and Round Table Pizza were founded. The train station holds the record as the oldest continually operating train station in California. It is one of the most educated cities in California and the United States; nearly 70% of residents over 25 have earned a bachelor's degree or higher.

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.

Eugene Kleiner was an Austrian-American engineer and venture capitalist. He is considered a pioneer of Silicon Valley. He was one of the original founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, part of the Traitorous Eight, and Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm which later became Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company was an early investor in more than 300 information technology and biotech firms, including Amazon.com, AOL, Brio Technology, Electronic Arts, Flextronics, Genentech, Google, Hybritech, Intuit, Lotus Development, LSI Logic, Macromedia, Netscape, Quantum, Segway, Sun Microsystems and Tandem Computers.

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.

Lynne C. Hermle is an attorney specializing in employment law. She is a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's Menlo Park, California office. She also serves on the firm's management committee, the "first partner from the firm's Silicon Valley office to serve, and the second woman ever chosen".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayfield (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Mayfield, also known as Mayfield Fund, is a US-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage to growth-stage investments in enterprise and consumer technology companies. Founded in 1969 and based in Menlo Park, California, it is one of Silicon Valley's oldest venture capital firms.

Frank J. Caufield was a co-founder and named partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, based in Menlo Park, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early history of private equity</span>

The early history of private equity relates to one of the major periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menlo Ventures</span> American venture capital firm

Menlo Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with an additional office in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded as one of the earliest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley in 1976 and provides technology venture capital funding for seed, early stage and growth companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooley LLP</span> American international law firm

Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life sciences, clean technology, real estate, financial services, retail, regulatory and energy.

Workday Adaptive Planning, formerly Adaptive Insights, is a software as a service company headquartered in Palo Alto, California and founded in 2003. The company's acquisition by Workday, Inc. was completed in August 2018.

Intersect ENT, a subsidiary of Medtronic, is a health care equipment company based in Menlo Park, California. It manufactures drug-delivery devices used by Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) clinicians in the treatment of sinusitis. Intersect ENT is best known for developing the first bioabsorbable drug-eluting sinus stent PROPEL, which delivers anti-inflammatory medication directly to the sinuses. The company holds over 20 issued patents in the United States and more than 80 patents and patent applications worldwide. The company was named on the Forbes list of America's Most Promising Companies and was also on the Fierce 15 list of Most Promising Companies in 2013.

Shasta Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment firm located in Silicon Valley that invests in enterprise and technology consumer startups. It is located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Sze</span> American businessman

David Sze is an American entrepreneur, investor, and managing partner at the venture capital firm Greylock Partners. Sze was named to Forbes' Midas List in 2013 and 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aileen Lee</span> American investor

Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.

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">Mamoon Hamid</span> Pakistani-American venture capitalist (born 1978)

Mamoon Hamid is a Pakistani-American venture capitalist currently serving as a Managing Member and General Partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

DeepMap, is a Palo Alto, California-based software company that develops high definition (HD) maps for self-driving vehicles.

References

  1. ↑ Murphy, Paul (March 10, 2015). "Sand Hill is the New Wall Street". Financial Times . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  2. ↑ Holson, Laura M. "Still Feeding An Internet Frenzy". The New York Times, June 6, 1999, sec. BU, p. 1.
  3. 1 2 3 "Venture Capital: Sand Hill Road Rules the Valley". Bloomberg News. December 4, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  4. ↑ Patel, Priti; Kwarteng, Kwasi; Raab, Dominic; Skidmore, Chris; Truss, Elizabeth (2012). Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 93–94. ISBN   978-1-137-27411-3 . Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  5. ↑ Neidorf, Shawn. "Menlo Park OKs Widening Sand Hill Road." San Jose Mercury News , November 13, 2002, sec. B, p. 1.
  6. 1 2 3 Nicholas, Tom (2019). VC: An American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 212. ISBN   9780674240117.
  7. ↑ Ulfelder, Steve. "Welcome to the Hotel California No Vacancy: It's goodbye Santa Clara and hello Cincinnati for an increasing number of Internet start-ups that would rather not deal with the Valley's insane real estate costs and fickle workforce." Network World, September 25, 2000, p. 100. "Feature: Welcome to the Hotel California No Vacancy, 09/25/00". Archived from the original on 2006-08-25. Retrieved 2006-04-21.
  8. ↑ "California Research Center". Harvard Business School. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Niksa, Matthew (August 2, 2022). "Sand Hill Road reckons with its future: Landlords of the iconic Silicon Valley office strip rethink strategies in remote-work era". The Real Deal . Retrieved December 10, 2023.
  10. ↑ "Contact Us". khoslaventures.com.
  11. ↑ GI Partners
  12. ↑ "5AM Ventures – Actively Building Life Science Companies". 5amventures.com.
  13. ↑ LightSpeed Venture partners – Contact us Archived 2011-03-11 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ Westly Group – Contact Us Archived 2012-01-25 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ↑ Contact Us – Nexus Venture Partners Archived 2013-08-01 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ↑ "About Us". Greylock Partners. Archived from the original on 2012-09-12. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
  17. ↑ "Contact Us to learn more about ONSET Ventures – ONSET Ventures". onset.com.
  18. ↑ "Altimeter Capital". altimetercapital.com.
  19. 1 2 "Shasta Ventures". shastaventures.com.
  20. ↑ "Silicon Valley – Contact – DCM". dcm.com.
  21. ↑ "Storm Ventures". stormventures.com. Archived from the original on 2013-10-29.
  22. ↑ "Contact Us". mayfield.com. Archived from the original on 2014-01-10. Retrieved 2013-07-27.
  23. ↑ "Contact Us". ggvc.com.
  24. ↑ Our Offices
  25. ↑ "Contact Us". interwest.com.
  26. ↑ "Dream Bigger". kpcb.com.
  27. ↑ Robert Noakes. "TriplePoint Capital – Contact Us". triplepointcapital.com.
  28. ↑ "Contact Us – Makena Capital Management". Makena Capital Management.
  29. ↑ "Oak Hill Capital Partners | Contact".
  30. ↑ "Home – Canaan". canaan.com.
  31. ↑ "Contact – Andreessen Horowitz". a16z.com. 2013-12-19.
  32. ↑ "Astellas Venture Management – Contact Us". astellasventure.com.
  33. ↑ "Altos Ventures". altos.vc.
  34. ↑ "Sierra Ventures – Venture Capital".
  35. ↑ "Contact". ivp.com.
  36. ↑ "Contact Us – Relay Ventures". relayventures.com. Archived from the original on 2013-04-06.
  37. ↑ Chernova, Yulia. "Redpoint Clean-Tech Partner Departs, Likely to Join Bright Capital." Dow Jones Venturewire , October 4, 2012.
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