Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

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Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Type	Limited liability company
Founded	1972
Headquarters	Menlo Park, California
Key people	Eugene Kleiner, Bill Joy
Industry	Venture Capital
Products	Investments, private equity funds
Website	www.kpcb.com

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) is a venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. The firm was named after its four founding partners: Eugene Kleiner (emeritus), Tom Perkins (emeritus), Frank J. Caufield (emeritus), and Brook Byers.

The firm was formed in 1972. At that point, the founders of most venture capital firms came from financial backgrounds, however Kleiner Perkins's founders distinguished themselves through their industry experience—Kleiner as a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Perkins as one of the leaders of Hewlett-Packard's early computer hardware division.

Like other venture capital firms, the firm does not discourage transactions among companies in which it holds a stake.^{[citation needed]} This is similar to the Japanese keiretsu style of company structure.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Investments 2 Partners 3 Think America 4 Conflict-of-interests concerns 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Investments

History of private equity and venture capital

Early History (Origins of modern private equity) • The 1980s (LBO boom) • The 1990s (LBO bust and the VC bubble) • The 2000s (Dot-com bubble to the Credit crunch)

v • d • e

The company has been an early investor in more than 300 IT (information technology) and biotech firms, over the past thirty five years, including: Amazon.com, America Online, Brio Technology, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Flextronics, Genentech, Google, Intuit, Lotus Development, LSI Logic, Macromedia, Netscape, Quantum, Segway, Sun Microsystems, and Tandem.^[1] Current private investments as of November 2007 include EEstor, Vertica, Ocarina Networks and OptiMedica.

KPCB paid $4 million in 1994 for around 25% of Netscape and profited from Netscape's IPO and subsequent $4 billion acquisition by America Online. An investment of $8 million in Cerent was worth around $2 billion when the optical equipment maker was sold to Cisco Systems for $6.9 billion in August 1999.

In 1999, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital paid $25 million for 20% of Google—as of November 2008 Google's market capitalization stood at about $108 billion. As initial investors in Amazon.com KPCB scored returns of over 55,000% at the December 1999 peak of that stock, although the value of that investment was subsequently reduced by downturns in Amazon.com's stock price.

In March, 2008, KPCB announced the iFund, a $100 million venture capital investment initiative that will fund innovators developing applications, services, and components for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch platform. KPCB's other mobile initiatives also include an investment in InMobi, a mobile ad network based out of Bangalore.

In April 2008, it was reported that KPCB was raising funds for a $400 million growth-stage clean-technology fund.^[2]

[edit] Partners

Notable members of the firm include partners John Doerr and Brook Byers, as well as high-profile individuals such as Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy (who joined as partner in January 2005), former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (who joined in July 2005 in the newly-created position of "strategic limited partner"), and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who joined as partner in November 2007^[3][4] as part of a collaboration between KPCB and Gore's firm Generation Investment Management (GIM) to promote green technology, business and policy solutions.^[5] In 2008, John Gage of Sun Microsystems joined Gore as a partner. ^[6][7]

[edit] Think America

KPCB has publicized its plan to put as many as 50,000 electric cars on U.S. roads beginning late next year and could make the famed tech region south of San Francisco a center for these vehicles. The venture will be called Think North America and be based in Menlo Park, California.^[8]

The plan will bring together Kleiner with RockPort Capital Management, a venture capital firm focused on clean technology, and Think Global, a Norwegian electric car maker.^[8]

[edit] Conflict-of-interests concerns

Various politicians, journalists, and public-policy wonks have raised concerns about KPCB partners having conflicts of interests as they play the dual role of investors and governmental advisers. For example, in November 2009, the National Center for Public Policy Research drew attention to the fact that KPCB partner John Doerr remains a member of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board while KPCB has simultaneously been directly benefiting from millions of dollars of newly created U.S. taxpayer subsidies.^[9]

High-profile KPCB partner Al Gore has been under even more scrutiny. On April 24, 2009, during a congressional hearing, Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn asked Gore if he was a member of KPCB, and then inquired: "The legislation that we are discussing here today, is that something that you are going to personally benefit from?”^[10] She cited constituent concerns about Gore's role with KPCB as the reason for her inquiry.^[11] The exchange ended with Gore stating: “Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country? . . . I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”^[12] The Gore-Blackburn exchange was not widely publicized by major news outlets like The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times until November 3, 2009 -- more than five months after its occurrence -- upon the revelation that KPCB had indirectly landed a $560 million taxpayer-funded contract from the U.S. government.^[13][14]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Videos of Khosla, Doerr, Komisar, speaking at Stanford

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