Venture capital (VC) 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 firms 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.
The Canopy Group is an American investment and property management firm founded by Ray Noorda in 1995 through the Noorda Family Trust. It is headquartered in Lindon, Utah. At various times it has consisted of, or been known as, Canopy Technologies, Canopy Properties, and Canopy Ventures.
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. In 2019, Blackstone converted from a publicly traded partnership into a C-type corporation. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. As of 2021, the company's total assets under management were approximately US$880 billion.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
Fortress Investment Group is an American investment management firm based in New York City. Fortress was founded as a private equity firm in 1998 by Wes Edens, Rob Kauffman, and Randal Nardone. When Fortress launched on the NYSE in February 2007, it was the first large private equity firm in the US to be traded publicly. As of June 30, 2020, the firm manages approximately $45.5 billion alternative assets in private equity, liquid hedge funds and credit funds.
GTCR LLC is a Chicago, Illinois-based private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout, leveraged recapitalization, growth capital and rollup transactions. The firm principally invests in high-growth industries, including financial services & technology, healthcare, information services & technology, and growth business services.
Powerset was an American company based in San Francisco, California, that, in 2006, was developing a natural language search engine for the Internet. On July 1, 2008, Powerset was acquired by Microsoft for an estimated $100 million.
AlpInvest Partners is a dutch private equity asset manager with over $47 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2017. The firm invests on behalf of a broad range of institutional investors from North America, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity (GE) investment firm with more than $12.5B in capital under management. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet, software as a service, business and financial services, consumer and healthcare. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Norwest has offices in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai, India and Herzelia, Israel. The firm has funded more than 650 companies since inception. As of 2022, the firm has approximately 200 active companies across its venture and growth equity portfolio.
Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth 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 expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.
Draper Triangle Ventures is a Pittsburgh based venture capital firm.
HarbourVest Partners is a private equity fund of funds and one of the largest private equity investment managers globally. The firm invests in all types of private equity funds, including venture capital and leveraged buyout funds, and also directly in operating companies.
Matrix Partners is a US-based private equity investment firm focusing on venture capital investments. The firm invests in seed and early-stage companies in the United States and India, particularly in the software, communications, semiconductors, data storage, Internet or wireless sectors.
View, Inc. is an American glass-manufacturing company that produces a smart glass based on electrochromism.
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.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With ~$25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the world's largest venture capital firms.
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. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, with overseas branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE.
Chairish is a curated online marketplace for high-end vintage home furnishings. Chairish accepts furniture and decor with a minimum listing price of $25. Listing items is free, and the seller keeps up to 80 percent of the final sale.
Sapphire Ventures, LLC is a venture capital firm with offices in Austin, Palo Alto, London and San Francisco.
