Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American

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 hav ...

which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs in over 900 ventures,"Assets"
Kleiner Perkins, 2019 including America Online,

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...

Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum up ...

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

JD.com JD.com, Inc., also known as Jingdong (), internationally known as Joybuy and formerly called 360buy,

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

, Genentech,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, Netscape, Sun Microsystems,

Nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is an American multinational cybersecurity company with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The core products is a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to ...

, Synack,

Snap Snap or SNAP may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Snap'', the original release title for the 2013 film ''Enter the Dangerous Mind'' *''Snap'' (TV series), a CITV programme * ''The Stanly News and Press'', a newspaper in Albemarle, North Carol ...

AppDynamics AppDynamics is a full-stack application performance management (APM) and IT operations analytics (ITOA) company based in San Francisco. The company focuses on managing the performance and availability of applications across cloud computing envi ...

, and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds"Future Raises $8.5M in Series A Funding Led by Kleiner Perkins to Digitize the Personal Training Experience"
Kleiner Perkins, 5/23/2019 and four growth funds. Kleiner Perkins is headquartered in Menlo Park in

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 Coun ...

, with offices in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Kleiner Perkins Offices at KPCB.com
and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

, China. The ''New York Times'' described Kleiner Perkins as "perhaps

's most famous venture firm". ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' called it one of the "largest and most established" venture capital firms and ''Dealbook'' named it "one of Silicon Valley's top venture capital providers."

History

The firm was formed in 1972 as Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB)KPCB Information Technology
in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south ...

, with a focus on seed, early-stage, and growth companies. The firm is named after its four founding partners:

Eugene Kleiner Eugene Kleiner (12 May 1923 – 20 November 2003) was an Austrian-American engineer and venture capitalist. He is considered a pioneer of Silicon Valley. He was one of the original founders of Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital fi ...

, Tom Perkins, Frank J. Caufield, and Brook Byers. Kleiner was a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, and Perkins was an early Hewlett-Packard executive. Byers joined in 1977. Located in

, Kleiner Perkins had access to the growing technology industries in the area. By the early 1970s, there were many

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

companies based in the

Santa Clara Valley The Santa Clara Valley is a geologic trough in Northern California that extends 90 miles (145 km) south–southeast from San Francisco to Hollister. The longitudinal valley is bordered on the west by the Santa Cruz Mountains and on the east ...

as well as early computer firms using their devices and programming and service companies. Venture capital firms suffered a temporary downturn in 1974, when the stock market crashed and investors were naturally wary of this new kind of investment fund. Nevertheless, the firm was still active in this period. By 1996, Kleiner Perkins had funded around 260 companies a total of $880 million. Beyond the original founders, notable members of the firm have included individuals such as

John Doerr L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the Pre ...

Vinod Khosla Vinod Khosla (born 28 January 1955) 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 suc ...

, and

Bill Joy William Nelson Joy (born November 8, 1954) is an American computer engineer and venture capitalist. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as Chief Scientist and CTO at ...

. Colin Powell joined as a "strategic" partner in 2005, while

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...

joined as a partner in 2007 as part of a collaboration between Kleiner Perkins and Generation Investment Management.

Mary Meeker use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , nationality = American , citizenship = , education ...

joined the firm in 2010, and that year Kleiner Perkins expanded its practice to invest in growth stage companies. Meeker departed in 2019 to found Bond Capital."Mary Meeker Makes First Investment Out of Bond Capital"
'' Fortune'', Polina Marinova, published 5/21/2019 Mamoon Hamid from Social Capital and Ilya Fushman from Index Partners joined in 2017 and 2018 respectively, both as investing partners. The ''New York Times'' has described Kleiner Perkins as "perhaps

's the most famous venture firm". The firm was described by ''

Dealbook Andrew Ross Sorkin (born February 19, 1977) is an American journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for ''The New York Times'' and a co-anchor of CNBC's ''Squawk Box.'' He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news s ...

'' in 2009 as "one of Silicon Valley's top venture capital providers", and ''

'' in 2010 called it one of the "largest and most established" venture capital firms. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds and four growth funds. In May 2012,

Ellen Pao Ellen Kangourou Pao (born 1970) is an American investor and former CEO of social media company Reddit. Pao first became known in 2012 for filing a failed gender discrimination suit against her employer, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, a ...

, an employee, sued the firm for

gender discrimination Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...

in '' Pao v. Kleiner Perkins'', which the firm has vigorously denied. On 27 March 2015, after a month-long trial, the jury found against Pao on all claims. In June 2015, Pao filed an appeal. In September 2015, Pao announced she would no longer appeal the jury verdict. In September 2018, Kleiner Perkins announced it was spinning out its digital growth team into a new independent firm. The firm announced its 19th fund on 31 January 2019 after raising $600 million. The fund is focused on early stage investments"The Funded: Kleiner Perkins, TCV raise big new funds"
''

Silicon Valley Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor New ...

'', Cromwell Schubarth, 2/1/2019 in the "consumer, enterprise, hard tech and fintech" sectors."Why VC Firm Kleiner Perkins Wants to ‘Return to Its Roots’ With a New $600M Fund"
'' Fortune'', Polina Marinova, 2/1/2019 The firm raised US$600 million for its 18th fund, KP XVIII, in January 2019.

Investments

In March 2008 Kleiner Perkins announced the

iFund The iFund is a US$200 million capital fund. Developers may enter into equity deals for the creation of applications, services, and components for Apple Inc.'s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad platform. It is being offered and managed by venture capit ...

, a $100 million venture capital investment initiative that funds concepts related to the iPhone, and doubled that investment a year later.KPCB doubles iFund investment to $200MM
It was reported in April 2008 that Kleiner Perkins was raising funds for a $500 million growth-stage clean-technology fund. In October 2010, the firm launched a $250 million fund called sFund to focus on social startups, with co-investors such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

and

. In early 2016, the firm raised $1.4 billion in KP XVII and DGF III. The firm has been an early investor in more than 900 technology and life sciences firms since its founding, including

, America Online,

Beyond Meat Beyond Meat, Inc. is a Los Angeles–based producer of plant-based meat substitutes founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. The company's initial products were launched in the United States in 2012. History Founding Ethan Brown founded the company in ...

Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologi ...

, Genentech,

Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application ...

Lotus Development Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1- ...

, Netscape, Shyp,

,"Alumni"
Kleiner Perkins, 2019 Sun Microsystems, and

. Some current investments include

DJI SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. ( zh, c=深圳大疆创新科技有限公司, p=Shēnzhèn Dà Jiāng Chuàngxīn Kējì Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) in full, more popularly known as its trade name DJI, which s ...

, Handshake,

Coursera Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...

, Shape Security, Farmers Business Network, Interos, IronNet Cybersecurity,

Desktop Metal Desktop Metal is a public American technology company that designs and markets 3D printing systems. Headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, the company has raised $438 million in venture funding since its founding from investors such as G ...

, Gusto, Plaid, Rippling, Robinhood, Slack,

UiPath UiPath is a global software company that makes robotic process automation (RPA) software. It was founded in Bucharest, Romania, by Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă. Its headquarters are in New York City. The company's software monitors user acti ...

Netlify Netlify is a remote-first cloud computing company that offers a development platform that includes build, deploy, and serverless backend services for web applications and dynamic websites. The platform is built on open web standards, making ...

, Loom, Viz.ai, and Looker."Partnerships (Consumer"
Kleiner Perkins, 2019 Very recent investments include Modern Health,"Kleiner Perkins Backs Jared Leto Mental Health Startup"
''Business Insider'', 5/2019 Pillar,

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

, Korie Konish, 5/30/2019 Future"Future launches $150/mo exercise app where real coaches nag you"
''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

'', Josh Constine, published 6/2019 and STORD."Stord raises $12.3 million to digitize warehousing and distribution"
''

VentureBeat ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. History The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, ...

'', published 4/17/2019 Kleiner Perkins paid $5 million in 1994 for around 25% of Netscape and profited from Netscape's

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. Its investment of $8 million in Cerent was worth around $2 billion when the optical equipment maker was sold to

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

for $6.9 billion in August 1999. In 1999, Kleiner Perkins paid $12 million for a stake in

."How John Doerr, the old prospector, finally struck Google"
'' CNET'', published 5/3/2004 As of 2019, the market cap of Google's parent company was estimated at around $831 billion."Google has lost $70 billion off its market cap after a 'nasty combination' of slowing ad traffic and a drop in sales per click (GOOG)"
''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German pub ...

'', Theron Mohamed, 4/30/2019 As initial investors in Amazon.com Kleiner Perkins scored returns in excess of $1 billion on an $8 million investment.

Key partners

The firm currently has five partners managing investments:"People"
Kleiner Perkins, published 2019 *

''(chairman)'' * Brook Byers ''(founder)'' * Ilya Fushman * Mamoon Hamid * Wen Hsieh * Bucky Moore * Ted Schlein

Key Advisors

* Colin Powell * Randy Komisar *

Bing Gordon William "Bing" Gordon is a video game executive and technology venture capitalist. He served ten years as Chief Creative Officer of video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts (EA) prior to his current partnership with Kleiner Perkins Cauf ...

* Eric Feng

References

External links