Started in 2002, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK Foundation) is a global venture philanthropy firm supporting social enterprises.

History

The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is the philanthropic arm of

Draper Richards Draper Richards is a private equity firm focused on venture capital investments in U.S. technology companies. The firm was founded in 1996 by Bill Draper, an early venture capitalist who had previously founded Sutter Hill Ventures, and Robin Ri ...

, a

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 ha ...

firm founded by William H. Draper, III and Robin Richards Donohoe in 1994. DRK Foundation was originally founded as the Draper Richards Foundation in 2002 and began by making investments in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. In 2010,

Robert Steven Kaplan Robert Steven Kaplan (born 1957) was most recently the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and is a former long-time Goldman Sachs executive. Prior to joining the Dallas Fed, Kaplan was a faculty member and senior associate ...

of the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

joined the Foundation and it changed its name to the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.

Portfolio

Since beginning this work in 2002, DRK has invested in more than 190 organizations. Organizations funded includ
Peepul India
in 2020,

Watsi Watsi, legally Watsi, Inc., is a nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform that enables individual donors to directly fund medical care for individuals in developing countries without access to affordable medical care. Background Watsi was ...

in 2013,

Kiva A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground, ...

in 2007,

Living Goods Living Goods is a non-profit organization headquartered in Nairobi, with core operations in Uganda, Kenya, and Burkina Faso. Its mission is to saves lives at scale by supporting digitally empowered community health workers (CHWs) who deliver car ...

in 2007, and

Room to Read Room to Read is a global non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California. The organization focuses on working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments to improve literacy and gender equalit ...

in 2002.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Foundations based in the United States Menlo Park, California Organizations established in 1994 1994 establishments in California

History

Portfolio

See also

References

External links