In the field of finance, private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies that they invest in.
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.
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.
An entrepreneur in residence, or executive in residence (EIR), is a position most often held by successful entrepreneurs in venture capital firms, private equity firms, startup accelerators, law firms or business schools. The EIR typically leads, or has led, a small, early-stage, emerging company deemed to have high-growth potential, or which has demonstrated high growth in its number of employees, annual revenue, or both. An institutional fund may provide an entrepreneur in residence, or executive in residence, with the working capital to nurture expansion, new-product development, or restructuring of a company's operations, management, or ownership.
Adebayo "Bayo" O. Ogunlesi CON is a Nigerian lawyer and investment banker. He is currently chairman and managing partner at the private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). Ogunlesi was the former head of global investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston before being promoted to chief client officer and executive vice chairman.
Jeremy Coller is a British businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chief investment officer and chairman of Coller Capital. Known as "The Godfather of Secondaries", Coller is one of Europe's best-known alternative investors, specialising in buying second-hand stakes in private equity funds.
Insight Partners is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and Internet businesses. The company is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Tel Aviv, and Palo Alto.
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.
James W. Breyer is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. Breyer has invested in over 40 companies that have gone public or completed a merger, with some of these investments, including Facebook, earning over 100 times cost and many others over 25 times cost. On the Forbes 2021 list of the 400 richest Americans, he was ranked #389, with a net worth of US$2.9 billion.
Klaus Hommels is a German venture capitalist. He focuses on early and growth-stage investments and has founded his own venture capital fund by the name of Lakestar, through which he has been investing mainly in digital businesses. He has been invested in Facebook, Skype and Xing; other examples are Klarna and Revolut.
Dmitry Alimov is a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and investor in technology businesses, founder and managing partner of the investment fund Frontier Ventures, and co-founder of the online video service ivi.tv. He worked as a senior manager in companies such as Access Industries, TNT, Amedia, ru-Net Ltd, and Sputnik Group. In 2012, Russian business magazine, Secret Firmy, named Alimov as one of the Top-50 Russian Internet Millionaires. In 2016 the European CEO magazine named Dmitry Alimov Entrepreneur of the Year.
MCI Capital SA - private equity fund listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange established in 1999 by Tomasz Czechowicz with assets under management (AUM) of 2.8 billion PLN and permanent capital of 1.8 billion PLN [ca. 400 m Euro) as of December 31, 2021. According to Wall Street Journal MCI is one of Poland’s leading private equity companies.
Unbabel is an artificial intelligence-powered human translation platform. The company has headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal, and San Francisco, California.
Alejandro Ponce is a Peruvian economist, seasoned global investor, and recognized Latin-American serial entrepreneur. He is one of the founders of Nexus Group, the largest Peruvian private equity firm with total commitments of about 1 billion. For 17 years, Alejandro acted as Managing Partner, and was responsible for creating and sourcing new ventures and investment opportunities, as well as strategic monitoring of the portfolio companies. In 2015, Alejandro decided to leave Nexus Group, expanding his investment scope and founding ToN Ventures, an angel investment fund with 25 minority stake investments in innovative technology ventures, mainly based in Israel and the Silicon Valley.
Philip M. Bilden is an American businessman and private equity & venture capital investor. He was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the 76th United States Secretary of the Navy in January, 2017, although he subsequently withdrew himself from consideration. He is a philanthropist and advocate for national security, the U.S. Navy, and cybersecurity.
Almaz Capital is a global VC fund headquartered in Portola Valley, California, United States investing in early stage, capital efficient technology companies in high-growth sectors. Almaz Capital focuses on disruptive deep tech companies in b2b software space, including AI/ML and Blockchain applications, IoT and Edge Computing Enablers, Cybersecurity, etc. Since its foundation the firm's portfolio has included about 50 companies, with more than 300 million US dollars invested in them.
Cristina Fonseca is a Portuguese tech entrepreneur, Angel investor and Engineer, better known as one of the founders of Talkdesk, a cloud-based help desk software that became Portugal's third "unicorn" after raising US$100M in series B funding at a valuation of over US$1 billion in October 2018.
Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.
Summit Partners is an American investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm focuses on investing in technology, healthcare, life sciences and other growth industries.
Alpac Capital is a generalist investment group, founded in 2013, which manages three Investment Funds regulated by the Portuguese Security and Exchange Commission (CMVM):
