Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.
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. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, Sequoia's total assets under management were approximately US$85 billion.
Warren Van Dyke "Pete" Musser was the chairman of the Musser Group. He was the founder of Safeguard Scientifics, a venture capital firm that invested in technology companies. At the peak of the dot-com bubble, Musser was a billionaire on paper; however, when the bubble burst, he lost almost his entire fortune.
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, Flixbus, Global Blue, GoDaddy, Jio, Lightbox, grupo BC de Asesoría Hipotecaria S.L., Motorola Solutions, New Zealand Rugby, 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.
Rahul Sood is the CEO and co-founder of Irreverent Labs, the former CEO of Unikrn), and was the founder of VoodooPC. Sood was also an early investor in AR/VR company Vrvana he's also an investor in blockchain play to earn horse racing game ZED Run, and high end PC gaming company, MAINGEAR.
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. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has invested in a number of companies and raised approximately $5.6 billion. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.
John William Gurley is an American businessman. He is a general partner at Benchmark, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. He is listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List and is considered one of technology’s top dealmakers.
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.
Actua Corporation was a venture capital firm. During the dot com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of over $50 billion. The company was originally known as Internet Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Actua Corporation in September 2014. In 2018, the company underwent liquidation.
Michelangelo "Mike" Volpi is an Italian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He worked as an engineer, eventually becoming chief strategy officer at Cisco Systems during the company’s growth era, acquiring over 70 companies in less than five years. He co-founded Index Ventures’ San Francisco office with Danny Rimer in 2009.
CoachUp is a venture-funded startup company that connects athletes with private coaches.
Joshua J. Harris is an American businessman and investor. He co-founded Apollo Global Management in 1990, now one of the world's largest asset management firms. Harris is also the principal owner and managing partner of the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association and the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League, as well as a shareholder of Crystal Palace F.C. of the English Premier League among other sporting ventures. His net worth was estimated to be US$7.25 in 2023.
Jordan Fliegel is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, focused on the sports industry.
Skillz is an online mobile multiplayer video game competition platform that is integrated into a number of iOS and Android games. Players use it to compete in competitions against other players across the world.
Buck Buckley is the Co-Founder and CIO of Semcap and CEO of Actua Corporation, a company that he co-founded along with Ken Fox. In 2000, during the dot-com bubble, the company was valued at over $50 billion and Buckley's 3.5% stake made him a multi-billionaire on paper at the age of 40. In 2017, the company announced the sale of its majority-owned assets and that it would return capital to shareholders.
Jens Hilgers is a German entrepreneur who works in the esports industry. He was the founding CEO of the esports production company Electronic Sports League (ESL), and is a co-founder and the CEO of Bayes, an esports data company based in Berlin. In 2014, he co-founded G2 Esports together with Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez, and currently serves as its chairman. He is also the founding general partner of BITKRAFT Ventures, a global early- and mid-stage investment platform for gaming, esports, and Web3. He has been credited as an early pioneer of the esports industry.
Immortals, LLC, doing business as Immortals Gaming Club (IGC), is a collective esports and gaming company. The company rebranded from Immortals to Immortals Gaming Club in 2019 after they acquired Brazil's Gamers Club. IGC owns and operates IGC Esports, which houses the Immortals, MIBR, and the Los Angeles Valiant, and also has a partnership with the Brazilian sports club Corinthians.
David J. Adelman is a billionaire American businessman and entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Campus Apartments, the co-founder and Chair of FS Investments and the founder of Darco Capital Chair. In October 2022, Adelman became a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils.
Donn Davis is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur. He is founder, chairman and co-owner of the Professional Fighters League, co-owner of e-sports team Team Liquid and founding partner of the investment firm Revolution LLC.
