 Venrock logo | |
| Company type | Limited liability company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Venture capital |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Founder | Laurance Rockefeller |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Products | Investments |
| Website | venrock |
Venrock (portmanteau of Venture and Rockefeller) is an American venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the Rockefeller family [1] that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, and Boston, Massachusetts.
Venture capitalist Laurance S. Rockefeller (1910–2004) was the fourth of the six children of John D. Rockefeller Jr. In January 1946 he formed Rockefeller Brothers, Inc., one of the first postwar venture-capital operations, starting with a capitalization of $1.5 million. There were eight partners in all, the five brothers and their sister, Abby, and two non-family members, Harper Woodward and MIT scientist Ted Walkowicz. In 1969, the firm became known as Venrock. [2] Laurance S. Rockefeller became an investor in enterprises based on science and technology. His investment interests included the fields of aviation, aerospace, electronics, high temperature physics, composite materials, optics, lasers, data processing, thermionics, and nuclear power.[ citation needed ]
Venrock closed its seventh fund in July 2014 with 8 partners and its eighth fund in January 2017 with 15 partners, each fund totalling $450 million. [3] [4]
Venrock invested more than $2.5 billion in more than 440 companies, resulting in 125 initial public offerings.[ citation needed ] Venrock focuses its investments on early-stage and start-up companies in information technology, healthcare and emerging technologies. These include: Intel, Apple, [1] AppNexus, Astranis, StrataCom, Check Point Software, Dapper Labs, DoubleClick, 3Com Corporation, Mosaic, PGP, Itek, Digex, Interos, [5] Shape Security, Phoenix, Second Rotation (gazelle), RedSeal, CTERA Networks, and Juno Therapeutics. It also has a significant venture in the nascent nanotechnology field, with early funding of Nanosys and the nanotech division of Du Pont. [6] Others include BioTime. [7] [8]
In the healthcare sector with partners such as Bryan Roberts, Venrock has invested in athenahealth, Grand Rounds, HealthSouth Corporation, MedPartners, Inc., Castlight Health, Caliper Technologies Corporation, Centocor, Geron, [9] senolytic startup UNITY Biotechnology, [10] Genetics Institute, Idec Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Illumina, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Sirna Therapeutics, and Sugen.[ citation needed ]
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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.
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William H.Rastetter, a scientist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, is the chair of Neurocrine Biosciences, of Fate Therapeutics, and of Daré Bioscience, Inc. in San Diego, California. He was a founding board member and investor in GRAIL, Inc. in Menlo Park, California, and served for a period as the company's interim CEO (2017) and chair (2017-2018). Rastetter is also a director of Regulus Therapeutics and Iambic Therapeutics. He was a partner in the venture firm Venrock (2006-2013), and a trustee at Caltech (2015-2018). He has served as a director (1998-2016) and as chair of Illumina (2005-2016). He advised SVB Leerink (2014-2019) and currently advises Illumina Ventures.
Log9 Materials is an Indian nanotechnology company, headquartered in Bangalore, operating in the areas of sustainable energy and filtration. With 16 patents around Graphene, Log9 Materials has developed Aluminium–air battery, aluminium fuel cells for both mobility and stationary energy applications. Log9 was awarded "Most Innovative Technology Company of 2018" by the Department of Science and Technology (India), Government of India.
OrbiMed is an American investment firm based in New York City, United States. It is focused on making public and private investments in the Healthcare and Biotechnology industries. OrbiMed is considered one of the world's largest dedicated healthcare investment firms.
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