Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. 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 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. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Ronald Crawford Conway is an American venture capitalist and philanthropist. He has been described as one of Silicon Valley's "super angels".
Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.
Founders Fund is an American venture capital fund formed in 2005 and based in San Francisco. The fund 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 an 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.
Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.
An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early 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 and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.
GGV Capital was an American venture capital firm. The firm was established in 2000 and was headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Formerly known as Granite Global Ventures, the firm had become one of the most active American investors in the Chinese artificial intelligence industry.
Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based venture capital investment firm focusing on fast-growing technology companies. IVP was founded in 1980, making it one of the first venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.
Venture capital in Israel refers to the financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies based in Israel. The country's venture capital industry was born in the mid-1980s and has rapidly developed. Israel currently has more than 276 active venture capital funds, of which 71 are international VCs with Israeli offices. Israel's venture capital and incubator industry plays an important role in the booming high-tech sector that has been given the nickname "Silicon Wadi", considered second in importance only to its Californian counterpart, the Silicon Valley.
David "Dave" McClure is an entrepreneur and angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded the business accelerator 500 Startups and served as its CEO until his resignation in 2017. He founded Practical Venture Capital soon after, a new venture capital fund that would continue to work with companies he previously funded through 500 Startups.
MicroVentures is an equity crowdfunding website that offers investments in early stage companies. It connects accredited investors with startups, businesses and services looking to raise funds or participate in select secondary market opportunities.
AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. 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. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.
Brad Feld is an American entrepreneur, author, blogger, and venture capitalist at Foundry Group in Boulder, Colorado, a firm he started with partners Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Jason Mendelson.
Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States which specializes in funding early-stage startups of consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors. It has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.
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.
Theresia Gouw is an entrepreneur and venture capital investor in the technology sector. She worked at Bain & Company, Release Software and Accel Partners before co-founding Aspect Ventures, a female-led venture capital firm, in 2014. Gouw was named one of the 40 most influential minds in tech by Time Magazine. and has been recognized seven times on the Forbes Midas List as one of the "world's smartest tech investors". According to Forbes, Gouw is the richest female venture capitalist, with a net worth of approximately $500 million, primarily due to her involvement with Accel (company)'s early investment in Facebook.
A unicorn bubble is a theoretical economic bubble that would occur when unicorn startup companies are overvalued by venture capitalists or investors. This can either occur during the private phase of these unicorn companies, or in an initial public offering. A unicorn company is a startup company valued at, or above, $1 billion US dollars.
Jennifer Fonstad is an American venture capital investor and entrepreneur. She is the managing partner and a co-founder of the Owl Capital Group, a venture firm based in Silicon Valley. Fonstad was Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) for 17 years. She is also co-founder of angel investing network Broadway Angels. Fonstad has been recognized as a top 100 tech investor on Forbes’ Midas List twice and was named 2016 Venture Capitalist of the Year by Deloitte. She is also a Founding Member of All Raise.
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.
CB Insights is a private company with a business analytics platform and global database that provides market intelligence on private companies and investor activities. The platform is targeted at private equity, venture capital, investment banking, angel investing, and consulting professionals by providing insights about high growth private companies.
