Social Capital, formerly known as Social+Capital Partnership, is 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 based in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, 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 Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. The firm specializes in technology startups, providing

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

, and

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 ty ...

. The firm has "stood out strategically", according to ''Fortune'', "with a focus on ... healthcare, financial services and education ... when those fields were ... neglected by the VC community."

History

Social Capital was founded in 2011 by

Chamath Palihapitiya Chamath Palihapitiya (born 3 September 1976) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, founder and CEO of Social Capital. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the compan ...

, who had previously worked at

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 M ...

. Mamoon Hamid and Ted Maidenberg also joined the firm that year as General Partners. In January 2015, ''

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...

'' reported that

Kleiner Perkins Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

was in acquisition talks with Social Capital, but the acquisition reportedly fell through. In May 2015, Social Capital raised $600 million in their third and largest venture capital fund.

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

cofounder

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Fac ...

praised Palihapitiya's approach, and as of 2015 served as a limited partner. In 2017,

Marc Mezvinsky Marc Mezvinsky (born December 10, 1977) is an American investor and managing director at TPG Inc., TPG. He has served previously as vice chairman at Social Capital (venture capital), Social Capital. He is the husband of Chelsea Clinton, daughter ...

joined Social Capital as vice chairman as it sought to expand beyond traditional venture capital. In August 2017, Hamid left Social Capital to join

as a

general partner General partner is a person who joins with at least one other person to form a business. A general partner has responsibility for the actions of the business, can legally bind the business and is personally liable for all the partnership's debts an ...

and managing member. In spring of 2018, Mezvinsky departed Social Capital. Later in 2018, then-partners Arjun Sethi, Jonathan Hsu, and Ted Maidenberg left the firm to co-found Tribe Capital.

Investments

Social Capital invested in

Yammer Yammer () is an enterprise social networking service that is part of the Microsoft 365 family of products. It is used mainly for private communication within organizations but is also used for networks spanning various organizations. Access to a ...

in 2011, which was later bought by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. In 2012, the firm invested in Impermium, which was acquired by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

in 2014. Also in 2012, the firm was a venture investor in

InstaEDU Chegg Tutors (formerly known as InstaEDU) was an online tutoring company that matched students seeking help with online tutors. Students could receive help either on-demand or by scheduling a lesson. History Chegg Tutors was founded in 2011 a ...

, acquired by

Chegg Chegg, Inc., is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services. The company was launched in 2005 ...

in 2014. Social Capital led a round of Series B funding for Wave Accounting. In 2014, Social Capital also invested in LotusFlare. In May 2015, the firm was a leading investor in a funding round for

Slack Technologies Slack Technologies, LLC is an American software company founded in 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, known for its proprietary communication platform Slack. Outside its headquarters in San Francisco, California, Slack operates offices in D ...

. Through 2016 and 2017, the firm began a Discover program which led to several investments in

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...

-related companies Aclima, UrbanFootprint, and DroneSeed, and space technology companies

Swarm Technologies Swarm Technologies, Inc. is a private company building a low Earth orbit satellite constellation for communications with Internet Of Things (IoT) devices using a Store and forward design. Social Capital incubated Swarm, Craft Ventures was an ea ...

and

Relativity Space Relativity Space is an American aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 2015 by Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone. Relativity Space is developing manufacturing technologies, launch vehicles and ...

. In September 2020, their SPAC IPOB merged with Opendoor Technologies with a market cap of $4.8 billion.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Social Capital Venture capital firms of the United States Companies based in Palo Alto, California Financial services companies established in 2011 2011 establishments in California