Every December, during the last six years, AlwaysOn has honored the investment talent in digital entertainment, on-demand computing, cloud and infrastructure, and digital media that is the foundation of the Global Silicon Valley. This year marks the announcement of AO’s seventh annual Venture Capital 100, and comes at a time when the worldwide venture-backed technology industry is expanding exponentially, creating new jobs, wealth, and, of course, invaluable products and services for a sophisticated and hungry audience.
The connected, mobile world has finally become a sea of opportunity, and the flourishing competition between several top mobile platforms provides a rich arena for entrepreneurs. In addition to smartphones, the tablet sector is heating up, with sales growing exponentially each quarter, prepping for innovations yet to be imagined. On-demand and cloud technology is being adopted by more and more businesses and is spreading amongst consumer applications as well. Mobile developers are teaming up with infrastructure experts to create applications that can run anywhere, anytime, for both business users and consumers.
The Next Big Exit
Backing these mighty startup experts are the venture capitalists, looking for the next big idea—the next big exit. This year’s VC 100 represents the movers and shakers in the Global Silicon Valley that have taken on the established legacy industries of our past and changed them forever. The companies being created by today’s entrepreneurial community are improving our lives, cleaning up our planet, and bringing prosperity to our economy.
With their wide range of expertise—mobile, cloud, on-demand, SaaS, advertising, digital entertainment, infrastructure—the VC100 winners are pushing technology to places that were only the slightest inkling of an idea a mere decade ago. These investors ensure that every great idea has a chance to become a successful, sustainable, profitable company.
AlwaysOn editors compiled the 2012 VC 100 with help from our research partners at Morgan Stanley and the 451 Group. The winning venture capitalists were selected based on total number and dollar amounts of successful M&A and IPO deals during the last two years (October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2012) from their portfolio companies. We acknowledge that our editors were not privy to the valuations paid by investors at each respective financing round, so this list is based upon our best educated estimation.
Congratulations to this year’s Venture Capital 100 winners. As the top venture capital-backed technology companies continue to bring new, innovative products, services, and applications to the world, they’re backed by the people from this list. With the flow of creative ideas from the entrepreneurial community, the opportunities for this year’s winners are unlimited.
The winners of this competition will be officially honored at:
Venture Summit Silicon Valley 2012
Where Big Ideas Meet Big Money
December 10th – 12th, 2012
The Ritz Carlton
Half Moon Bay, CA
To find out how your company can join the Venture Summit Silicon Valley’s distinguished group of sponsors and for detailed information on the CEO Showcase opportunity, please contact Shannon Calvin (shannon@aonetwork.com, 954.663.2086) or Grant Gunderson (grant@aonetwork.com, 916.217.0427) for details on how your company can participate.
For more information on group rates or to make reservations by phone, please contact the AlwaysOn Concierge, John Schwartz, at 310.721.9451 or by e-mail at john@aonetwork.com.
Now is the time to get on board. Whether you are looking for new investments, strategic partners or clients in the Global Silicon Valley, Venture Summit Silicon Valley is the insider event you won’t want to miss. We hope to see you there!
The conference is only two weeks away—Register today.
Introducing the 2012 Venture Capital 100:
VC of the Year
Jim Breyer
Partner, Accel Partners
www.accel.com
Notable Exits: Facebook, Brightcove
Everyone likes a comeback story and Accel’s Jim Breyer has certainly experienced the slings and arrows of Silicon Valley’s outrageous fortune. Throughout the desperation that marked the venture capital community a mere five years ago, Mr. Breyer, Accel Partners, and his own fund Breyer Capital, continued to seek promising technology investments, even as the market was failing, endowments were drying up, and other, seemingly stronger VC firms were folding. Now, with market recovery well in hand, and some notable exits to bolster the fund, Accel Partners is one of the most well-regarded firms in the Global Silicon Valley.
Currently, Mr. Breyer is a Partner at Accel, President of the Accel Management Company, and the Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital. He has been an investor in more than 30 consumer Internet, media, and technology companies that have had successful exits. Several of these investments returned more than 100 times their initial cost and many of these investments have returned more than 25 times their cost to investors. In 2005, Mr. Breyer led Accel’s investment in Facebook, and has served on its board of directors since that time. Post-IPO, Accel continues to hold 10% of Facebook’s stock, with only Mark Zuckerberg holding more.
Mr. Beyer is also currently on the board of directors of Walmart, where he is the Lead/Presiding Independent Director and serves on the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee and Technology Operations Committee. He also serves on the board of Brightcove, where, in 2005, he invested in its Series A round, and on the board of Dell, where he is the Chair of the Finance Committee. Last year, Mr. Breyer was elected to the board of News Corporation. He continues to serve on several committees, funds, universities, non-profit organizations, and research centers. Mr. Breyer graduated with a BS from Stanford University with distinction and from Harvard University with an MBA, where he was named a Baker Scholar.
The Accel team continues to be a reigning force in the Global Silicon Valley, with nearly $9 billion under management. With the current surge in technology-related ideas, the fund has its pick of the best and brightest of tomorrow’s potential winners. No doubt, Mr. Breyer and his Accel colleagues can look with confidence on a future that, with their help, will bring prosperous, sustainable businesses to the world technology marketplace.
Rookie of the Year
Matt Cohler
General Partner, Benchmark Capital
www.benchmark.com
Notable Exits: Instagram
Matt Cohler is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, where he is responsible for identifying investment opportunities in Internet-related companies, in addition to working closely with companies across the firm’s portfolio. He has partnered with entrepreneurs from across the social, mobile, and cloud industries, such as Instagram, Dropbox, Quora, Asana, Domo, Edmodo, Baixing, CouchSurfing, Peixe Urbano, ResearchGate, 1stdibs, and Zendesk.
Prior to joining Benchmark, Mr. Cohler served as the Vice President of Product Management at Facebook, where he led the development of new strategic initiatives for the company. As the seventh employee at Facebook, he played a crucial role within the team during many critical growth phases. Previously, Mr. Cohler was Vice President and General Manager at LinkedIn, where he was a member of the founding team. He also has been a consultant in McKinsey & Company’s Silicon Valley office and worked in Beijing for AsiaInfo, the Chinese startup that built the infrastructure for the Internet in mainland China. Mr. Cohler holds a bachelor’s degree with honors and distinction from Yale University.
Honorable Mention
Marc Andreessen
General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
a16z.com
Notable Exits: Facebook, Instagram, Skype
Marc Andreessen is a Founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in the enterprise and consumer technology industry. He is best known as the co-author of Mosaic, one of the first Web browsers, which he helped develop while he was the team leader at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Later, he was a Co-Founder of Netscape Communications, which, after its own successful IPO, was acquired by AOL in 1999. Mr. Andreessen served as Chief Technology Officer at AOL after the company acquired Netscape.
Mr. Andreessen is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of Ning, which provides a platform for social-networking websites. Since founding Andreessen Horowitz in 2009, the company has added several general partners to its team, including Chris Dixon and Scott Weiss, and invested in a numerous technology startups, including Skype, TinyCo, Zynga, Pinterest, Jawbone, Instagram, Foursquare, Groupon, Facebook, Box, Boku, Apptio, and Airbnb. While he is often best-remembered as one of the poster children for the original Web 1.0 generation, Mr. Andreessen has maintained his position as one of the pre-eminent technology leaders in the Global Silicon Valley. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Honorable Mention
David Sze
Partner, Greylock Partners
www.greylock.com
Notable Exits: Facebook, LinkedIn
David Sze joined Greylock Partners in 2000, and focuses on consumer Internet and services, media convergence, wireless data, and technology-assisted marketing services. Before coming to Greylock, he was the Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Excite and then Excite@Home. As an early employee at Excite, Mr. Sze also held roles as General Manager of Excite.com and Vice President of Content and Programming for the Excite Network. Before Excite, he was in product marketing and development at Electronic Arts and Crystal Dynamics, respectively. He started his career in management consulting for Marakon Associates and The Boston Consulting Group, and also spent time at HBO.
Mr. Sze’s investments include Facebook, Revision3 (acquired by Discovery Communications), Digg (Acquired by Betaworks), LinkedIn, Nextdoor, Oodle, Pandora, Path, SoftCoin (acquired by You Technology), SEVEN, SGN (acquired by MindJolt), VUDU (acquired by Walmart), New Edge Networks (acquired by EarthLink), and WhoSay. Additionally, he has invested in NOCpulse (acquired by Red Hat), New Edge Networks (acquired by EarthLink), Revision3 (acquired by Discovery Communications), SGN (acquired by MindJolt), SoftCoin (acquired by You Technology), VUDU (acquired by Walmart), and Digg (acquired by Betaworks). Mr. Sze holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University.
The 2012 Venture Capital 100
Julie Allegro-Constantin
Founder and Managing Director, Allegro Venture Partners
www.allegrovc.com
Notable Exits: Bazaar Voice
Carlton Amdahl
General Partner, Doll Capital Management
www.dcm.com
Notable Exits: SandForce
Steve Anderson
Founder, Baseline Ventures
baselinev.com
Notable Exits: Instagram
Brian Ascher
Partner, Venrock
www.venrock.com
Notable Exits: Vocera
Tom Banahan
Managing Director, Tenaya Capital
www.tenayacapital.com
Notable Exits: Cotendo, InfoBlox
Peter Barris
Managing General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
www.nea.com
Notable Exits: Groupon
Forest Baskett
General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
www.nea.com
Notable Exits: Fusion-io, RingCube
Skip Battle
General Partner, Advent Venture Partners
www.adventventures.com
Notable Exits: Workday
Allen Beasley
Partner, Redpoint Ventures
www.redpoint.com
Notable Exits: NextG Networks
Ron Berrnal
Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates
www.nea.com
Notable Exits: Nicira Networks
Thomas Bevilacqua
Managing Director, VantagePoint Capital Partners
www.vpcp.com
Notable Exits: WageWorks
Roelof Botha
General Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: Instagram
Michael Brown
General Partner, Battery Ventures
www.battery.com
Notable Exits: ExactTarget
Aneel Bushri
General Partner, Greylock Partners
www.greylock.com
Notable Exits: Workday
Asheem Chandna
Partner, Greylock Partners
www.greylock.com
Notable Exits: Palo Alto Networks
Richard Charpie
Founder and Managing Partner, Ampersand Capital Partners
www.ampersandcapital.com
Notable Exits: Endeca
Scott Chou
Managing Director, Gabriel Venture Partners
www.gabrielvp.com
Notable Exits: NextG Networks
Peter Chung
Managing Director, Summit Partners
www.summitpartners.com
Notable Exits: Ubiquiti Networks
John Connors
General Partner, Ignition Partners
www.ignitionpartners.com
Notable Exits: Splunk
Neal Dempsey
Senior Partner, Bay Partners
www.baypartners.com
Notable Exits: Guidewire Software
Don Dixon
Senior Managing Director and Co-Founder, Trident Capital
www.tridentcap.com
Notable Exits: Bytemobile
Jim Dorrian
General Partner, Crosspoint Venture Partners
www.cpvp.com
Notable Exits: DemandTec
Tom Dyal
Founding Partner, Redpoint Ventures
www.redpoint.com
Notable Exits: Clearwell Systems
Kevin Efrusy
Partner, Accel Partners
www.accel.com
Notable Exits: Groupon
David Epstein
General Partner, Crosslink Capital
www.crosslinkcapital.com
Notable Exits: BlueArc
Peter Fenton
General Partner, Benchmark Capital
www.benchmark.com
Notable Exits: Yelp
CJ Fitzgerald
Managing Director, Summit Partners
www.summitpartners.com
Notable Exits: Ubiquiti Networks
Ryan Floyd
Founding General Partner, Storm Ventures
www.stormventures.com
Notable Exits: SandForce
Jixun Foo
Partner, GGV Capital
www.ggvc.com
Notable Exits: Youku Todou
Venky Ganesan
Managing Director, Globespan Capital Partners
www.globespancapital.com
Notable Exits: Amobee, Palo Alto Networks
Jim Goetz
Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: Clearwell Systems, Palo Alto Networks, Jive Software
Michael Goguen
General Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: InfoBlox, LitePoint, LogLogic
Bob Goodman
Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
www.bvp.com
Notable Exits: Millennial Media
William “Bing” Gordan
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
www.kpcb.com
Notable Exits: Zynga
Mike Gordon
Managing Director, Meritech Capital Partners
www.meritechcapital.com
Notable Exits: NextG Networks
Theresia Gouw Ranzetta
Managing Partner, Accel Partners
www.accel.com
Notable Exits: Kosmix, Trulia
Jason Green
Co-Founder and General Partner, Emergence Capital Partners
www.emcap.com
Notable Exits: Yammer
Arun Gupta
Partner, Columbia Capital
www.colcap.com
Notable Exits: Millennial Media, Webs.com
Bill Gurley
General Partner, Benchmark Capital
www.benchmark.com
Notable Exits: Demandforce, Ubiquiti Networks
G. Felda Hardymon
Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
www.bvp.com
Notable Exits: Endeca
Venky Harinarayan
Founding Partner, Cambrian Ventures
www.cambrianventures.com
Notable Exits: Efficient Frontier
Kevin Harvey
General Partner, Benchmark Capital
www.benchmark.com
Notable Exits: Bytemobile
Jonathan Heiliger
General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners
www.nbvp.com
Notable Exits: Jive Software
Eric Hippeau
Partner, Lerer Ventures
www.lererventures.com
Notable Exits: Buddy Media, HuffingtonPost.com
Reid Hoffman
Partner, Greylock Partners
www.greylock.com
Notable Exits: Zynga
David Hornik
General Partner, August Capital
www.augustcap.com
Notable Exits: Splunk
Ben Horowitz
Co-Founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
a16z.com
Notable Exits: Nicira Networks
Scot Jarvis
General Partner, Oak Investment Partners
www.oakinv.com
Notable Exits: NextG Networks
Patrick Kerins
General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
www.nea.com
Notable Exits: Millennial Media
Josh Kopelman
Partner, First Round Capital
www.firstround.com
Notable Exits: Bazaar Voice
Nikitas Koutoupes
Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners
www.insightpartners.com
Notable Exits: ExactTarget
Steven Krausz
Managing Member, U.S. Venture Partners
www.usvp.com
Notable Exits: Guidewire Software
Joshua Kushner
Founder, Thrive Capital
www.thrivecap.com
Notable Exits: Instagram
Marc Kvamme
Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: LinkedIn
Roger Lee
General Partner, Battery Ventures
www.battery.com
Notable Exits: Angie’s List
Eric Lefkofsky
Managing Partner, Lightbank
lightbank.com
Notable Exits: Groupon
Douglas Leone
General Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: Aster Data Systems, Café Press, ServiceNow
Ted Leonsis
Co-Founder, Revolution Growth Fund
www.revolution.com/growth
Notable Exits: Groupon
Jeremy Levine
Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
www.bvp.com
Notable Exits: LinkedIn, Ubiquiti Networks, Yelp
Rick Lewis
General Partner, U.S. Venture Partners
www.usvp.com
Notable Exits: Yammer
John Lilly
General Partner, Greylock Partners
www.greylock.com
Notable Exits: Instagram
Larry Lowry
Advisor, Altos Ventures
www.altosventures.com
Notable Exits: DemandTec
Paul Madera
Founder and Managing Director, Meritech Capital Partners
www.meritechcapital.com
Notable Exits: BlueArc, Facebook, PopCap Games
Jules Maltz
General Partner, Institutional Venture Partners
www.ivp.com
Notable Exits: Buddy Media
Mike Maples
Managing Partner, Floodgate Fund
floodgate.com
Notable Exits: Demandforce
Chris Moore
Partner, Redpoint Ventures
www.redpoint.com
Notable Exits: Efficient Frontier
Gary Morgenthaler
Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
www.morgenthaler.com
Notable Exits: BlueArc
Hany Nada
Managing Director, GGV Capital
www.ggvc.com
Notable Exits: Endeca, Vocera
Thomas Neustaetter
Partner, JK&B Capital
www.jkbcapital.com
Notable Exits: Splunk
Rory O’Driscoll
Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners
www.scalevp.com
Notable Exits: ExactTarget
David Orfao
Managing Director, General Catalyst Partners
www.generalcatalyst.com
Notable Exits: Brightcove, Youku Todou
Chris Pacitti
General Partner, Austin Ventures
www.austinventures.com
Notable Exits: Bazaar Voice
Chamath Palihapitiya
Founder, The Social+Capital Partnership
s23p.com
Notable Exits: Yammer
Sean Parker
Executive General Partner, Founders Fund
www.foundersfund.com
Notable Exits: Yammer
Arthur Patterson
General Partner, Accel Partners
www.accel.com
Notable Exits: NextG Networks
Sunil Paul
Founding Partner, Spring Ventures
springventures.us
Notable Exits: Zynga
Andy Rachleff
Partner, Benchmark Capital
www.benchmark.com
Notable Exits: Nicira Networks
Jeff Richards
Partner, GGV Capital
www.ggvc.com
Notable Exits: Buddy Media
Haim Sadger
Partner, Sequoia Capital
www.sequoiacap.com
Notable Exits: Amobee, Cotendo
Scott Sandell
General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
www.nea.com
Notable Exits: Workday
James Sayre
Founder, Cargill Ventures
www.black-river.com
Notable Exits: DemandTec
Chris Schaepe
Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
lsvp.com
Notable Exits: Fusion-io, Unity
Mathias Schilling
General Partner, e.ventures
www.eventures.vc
Notable Exits: Angie’s List
Ted Schlein
General Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
www.kpcb.com
Notable Exits: Jive Software
Robert Schwartz
Managing Partner, Third Point Ventures
www.thirdpoint.com
Notable Exits: LitePoint
George Still
Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
www.nvp.com
Notable Exits: Workday
Nick Sturiale
General Partner, Jafco Ventures
www.jafco.com
Notable Exits: Splunk
Peter Thiel
Partner, Founders Fund
www.foundersfund.com
Notable Exits: Facebook
Michael Tyrrell
Partner, Venrock
www.venrock.com
Notable Exits: Endeca
Pravin Vazirani
Managing Director, Menlo Ventures
www.menlovc.com
Notable Exits: Carbonite
John Vrionis
Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
lsvp.com
Notable Exits: Nicira Networks
Jackie Yang
Managing Director, TransLink Capital
www.thrivecap.com
Notable Exits: SandForce
David Yuan
General Partner, Technology Crossover Partners
www.tcv.com
Notable Exits: ExactTarget
George Zachary
Partner, Charles River Ventures
www.crv.com
Notable Exits: Millennial Media, Yammer
Suyang Zhang
General Partner, IDG Technology Venture Investment III
www.idgventures.com
Notable Exits: Youku Todou
Peter Ziebelman
Partner, Palo Alto Venture Partners
www.pavp.com
Notable Exits: Demandforce
The winners of this competition will be officially honored at:
Venture Summit Silicon Valley 2012
Where Big Ideas Meet Big Money
December 10th – 12th, 2012
The Ritz Carlton
Half Moon Bay, CA
To find out how your company can join the Venture Summit Silicon Valley’s distinguished group of sponsors and for detailed information on the CEO Showcase opportunity, please contact Shannon Calvin (shannon@aonetwork.com, 954.663.2086) or Grant Gunderson (grant@aonetwork.com, 916.217.0427) for details on how your company can participate.
For more information on group rates or to make reservations by phone, please contact the AlwaysOn Concierge, John Schwartz, at 310.721.9451 or by e-mail at john@aonetwork.com.
Now is the time to get on board. Whether you are looking for new investments, strategic partners or clients in the Global Silicon Valley, Venture Summit Silicon Valley is the insider event you won’t want to miss. We hope to see you there!
The conference is only two weeks away—Register today.
“Venture Team” photo by EDHAR from Shutterstock.
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