|
Drive Capital
Drive Capital is a venture capital firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. History Drive Capital was founded in 2013 by Mark Kvamme and Chris Olsen, both formerly of Sequoia Capital. The firm primarily invests in tech startups outside Silicon Valley. Drive Capital has invested in various companies based in the United States and Canada. The firm's investments include Root Insurance Company, Duolingo, Olive, Greenlight, Civis Analytics, Udacity Udacity, Inc. is an American for-profit educational organization founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky offering massive open online courses. According to Thrun, the origin of the name Udacity comes from the company's desi ..., Path Robotics, and Vecna Robotics. The organization's programs focus on establishing entrepreneurial ecosystems with a goal to support new businesses and solidify a base of operation in the midwestern United States, rather than refocusing financial investment opportunities outside the regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privately Held Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their public company, publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Kvamme
Mark Kvamme (born February 20, 1961) is a venture capitalist at the firm Drive Capital in Columbus, Ohio and a sports car racing driver. Business career Kvamme founded Drive Capital with Chris Olsen in 2013. He currently sits on the board of Aver Informatics, FarmLogs, Clinc, Funny or Die, Gecko Robotics, Muve Health, Physna, and Udacity. He specializes in innovative technology, healthcare and consumer investments in the Midwest. Before Drive Capital, Kvamme was the interim chief investment officer and president of JobsOhio. Prior to JobsOhio, Kvamme was a partner at Sequoia Capital, the chairman and CEO of CKS Group, the director of international marketing at Wyse Technology, president and CEO of International Solutions and a founding member of Apple France. Kvamme formerly worked as state development director in the administration of Ohio Governor John Kasich. In 2015, Kvamme donated $500,000 to Kasich's 2016 presidential campaign through the limited liability corporation MMWP ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and the third-most populous state capital. Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County; it also extends into Delaware and Fairfield counties. It is the core city of the Columbus metropolitan area, which encompasses 10 counties in central Ohio. The metropolitan area had a population of 2,138,926 in 2020, making it the largest entirely in Ohio and 32nd-largest in the U.S. Columbus originated as numerous Native American settlements on the banks of the Scioto River. Franklinton, now a city neighborhood, was the first European settlement, laid out in 1797. The city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and laid out to become the state capital. The city was named for Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venture Capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as 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 (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 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 typical venture capital investment occurs after an initial "seed funding" round. The first ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venture Capital Firm
Venture capital (often abbreviated as 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 (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 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 typical venture capital investment occurs after an initial "seed funding" round. The first round ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sequoia Capital
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. , Sequoia's total assets under management were approximately US$85 billion. Sequoia is an umbrella brand for three different venture entities: one focused on the U.S. and Europe, another on India and Southeast Asia, and a third on China. Notable successful investments by Sequoia Capital include Apple, Cisco, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, PayPal, Reddit, Tumblr, WhatsApp, and Zoom. History Sequoia was founded by Don Valentine in 1972 in Menlo Park, California, at a time when the state’s venture capital industry was just beginning to develop. Sequoia formed its first venture capital fund in 1974, and was an early investor in Atari the next year. In 1978, Sequoia became one of the first investors in Apple. Partners Doug Leone and Michael Moritz assumed leade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County and Santa Clara County. San Jose is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States; other major Silicon Valley cities include Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Cupertino. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (after Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway), according to the Brookings Institution, and, as of June 2021, has the highest percentage of homes valued at $1 million or more in the United States. Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Root Insurance Company
Root Insurance is a recently founded car insurance company looking to penetrate into the well-established car insurance market. Root Insurance is powered entirely by their mobile app. It is licensed in 44 states but currently operates in 34 of those states. Root Insurance customers are incentivized through downloading their app and completing certain requirements. About Root Insurance headquarters are based out of Columbus, Ohio. Root Insurance largest markets are Texas, Georgia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Utah and Nevada. Root Insurance remains committed to embedded insurance, which made up for 41% of the companies new writing in Q4 of 2022 via Carvana. As of December 31, 2022, Root had 220,354 policies in force and $762.1 million in cash and cash equivalents. History Root Insurance was founded in March, 2015 by Alex Timm and Dan Manges. In 2021, Dan Manges co-founder retired as CTO but remained a consultant to the company through December, 2021. In August, 2021, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duolingo
Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces learning apps and provides language certification. On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. Duolingo offers over 100 total courses across over 40 distinct languages; including a small variety of constructed languages. The company uses a freemium model with over 500 million registered users. Duolingo offers a premium service which eliminates advertising and offers more features. Duolingo also offers the Duolingo English Test certification program and a literacy app for children called Duolingo ABC, and the company released an elementary level math app called Duolingo Math currently exclusive to iOS. History The idea for Duolingo was initiated at the end of 2009 in Pittsburgh by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn and his post-graduate student Severin Hacker. Von Ahn had sold his second company, reCAPTCHA, to Google ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civis Analytics
Civis Analytics is a US data science software and consultancy company founded by Dan Wagner in 2013, with backing by Eric Schmidt. Wagner had served as the Chief Analytics Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Civis Analytics helps businesses "understand their data, use that data to make predictions, and get recommendations on what steps to take next". Civis works with Fortune 500 companies and the country's largest organizations, including Verizon, Airbnb, Discovery, FEMA, Boeing and the American Red Cross. In 2020, the company faced controversy for firing employee David Shor after he tweeted a short summary of an academic paper by Omar Wasow, a black political scientist at Princeton University. Wasow's study contended that nonviolent protests had historically been more effective at driving political change than violent protests, which led some critics to argue that Shor's tweet could be interpreted as criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. After the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Udacity
Udacity, Inc. is an American for-profit educational organization founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky offering massive open online courses. According to Thrun, the origin of the name Udacity comes from the company's desire to be "audacious for you, the student". While it originally focused on offering university-style courses, it now focuses more on vocational courses for professionals. History Udacity is the outgrowth of free computer science classes offered in 2011 through Stanford University. Thrun has stated he hopes half a million students will enroll, after an enrollment of 160,000 students in the predecessor course at Stanford, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, and 90,000 students had enrolled in the initial two classes . Udacity was announced at the 2012 Digital Life Design conference. Udacity is funded by venture capital firm, Charles River Ventures, and $200,000 of Thrun's personal money. In October 2012, the venture capital firm Andrees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vecna Robotics
Vecna Robotics, Inc. is an American robotics and technology company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Incorporated in 2018 as a spin-off from Vecna Technologies, the company specializes in automated material handling, hybrid fulfillment and workflow optimization for industrial applications. In December 2017, the firm won the DHL& Dell Robotics Innovation Challenge for developing the Tote Retrieval System (TRS), an automated guided vehicle (AGV) capable of warehouse navigation and mobile piece-picking from conventional shelves. History Vecna Robotics originated as a division of Vecna Technologies, which had been founded in 1998 by MIT engineering alumni, Daniel Theobald. According to a December 2017 profile of Theobald by Forbes contributor, Frederick Daso, the company name ‘Vecna’ is derived from the Czech word věčný, fem. věčná, meaning ‘eternal’. Vecna Technologies focused primarily on health-care software development, while the robotics division eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
