Matrix Partners is a US-based

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

investment firm focusing on

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 start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

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. The firm is headquartered in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

, and has offices in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

;

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, India; and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, China.

History

Founded in 1977, Matrix was an active player in the development of the venture capital industry in the 1980s. The firm's direct predecessor, Hellman Ferri Investment Associates (1977 to 1982), was founded by Paul J. Ferri and

Warren Hellman F. Warren Hellman (July 25, 1934 – December 18, 2011) was an American investment banker and private equity investor, the co-founder of Hellman & Friedman, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. Hellman also co-founded Hellman, Ferri Inve ...

. In 1982, Ferri and Hellman split ways and Ferri went to focus on early-stage companies, forming Matrix in Boston, Massachusetts while Hellman founded the San Francisco-based private equity firm,

Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts ...

which focused on later-stage firm investments. Among the firm's notable investments, Matrix Partners was an early-stage investor in

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

, Arrowpoint Communications,

Digium Digium, Inc. is a communications technology company based in Huntsville, Alabama, and since 2018, a subsidiary of Sangoma Technologies Corporation. The company makes VoIP business phone systems, IP phones, and hardware products. It was founded ...

JBoss WildFly, formerly known as JBoss AS, or simply JBoss, is an application server written by JBoss, now developed by Red Hat. WildFly is written in Java and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) specification. It runs on mul ...

JustFab TechStyle Fashion Group, formerly JustFab Inc., is an online, membership fashion retailer that has a portfolio of five direct-to-consumer brands including JustFab, FabKids, ShoeDazzle, Savage X Fenty, and Fabletics. Its brands carries select ...

PSINet PSINet, based in Northern Virginia, was one of the first commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) and was involved in the commercialization of the Internet until the company's bankruptcy in 2001 during the dot-com bubble and acquisition by Coge ...

SanDisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...

, Silverstream Software, TheLadders.com, Sonus Networks,

Tivoli Software Tivoli Software encompasses a set of products originally developed by Tivoli Systems Inc. IBM bought the company and ran the operation as its Tivoli Software division. Additional products were acquired and run under the Tivoli portfolio brand. ...

, Tollbridge Technologies,

VERITAS Software Veritas Technologies LLC. is an American international data management company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company has its origins in Tolerant Systems, founded in 1983 and later renamed Veritas Software. It specializes in stor ...

Vermeer Technologies Incorporated Vermeer Technologies Incorporated was a software company founded in 1994 by Charles H. Ferguson and Randy Forgaard. Its products were a Web site development tool, FrontPage, and a Web server, Personal Web Server, which complemented developing in ...

, and

Xilinx Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company was known for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and creating the ...

. In 1985, Matrix raised its first

institutional Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

private equity fund. In 2001, Matrix Partners completed fundraising for Matrix Partners VII, a $1 billion venture capital fund. In 2006, Matrix raised Matrix Partners VIII fund, with $445 million of investor commitments. In 2006, Matrix also raised a separate $150 million India fund. In July 2009, Matrix raised Matrix IX fund with $600 million. As of 2018, the firm has raised eleven U.S venture capital funds and five China focused funds. In November 2021, ''

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 ...

'' reported that Matrix Partners is a major investor in Chinese semiconductor firms, raising U.S. national security concerns.

References

External links

* {{Venture capital firms Venture capital firms of the United States Financial services companies established in 1977 1977 establishments in California