Ron Conway
Ron Conway | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Occupation | Angel investor |
| Spouse | Gayle Conway |
| Children | Three sons |
Ron Conway is an American angel investor, based in Silicon Valley. As founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds, he was an early stage investor in Google, Ask Jeeves and PayPal, which was sold to online auctioneers eBay in July 2002 for $1.5bn.[1] Since 2005 he has been investing independently, achieving sixth place in the Forbes Magazine Midas list of top "dealmakers" in 2006.
Conway is a Special Partner at Baseline Ventures in partnership with Steve Anderson, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny. Baseline is a San Francisco-based early phase angel investment firm.[2]
Conway previously worked with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions (1973-1979), Altos Computer Systems, as a co-founder, President and CEO, (1979-1990) and Personal Training Systems (PTS) as CEO (1991-1995). PTS was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft.
A former salesman who had made a fortune in the computer business, it is alleged that Conway knew next to nothing about technology on his first entry to the business. The story goes that an assistant would print out an e-mail message so he could then read it and hand scribble a reply that she would then keypunch in.[3]
However, he is recognised as a strong networker, which helped him to secure funds for, among ventures, a web site to supply veterinary medical supplies, a weight-loss site, a maternity site and an e-commerce company featuring a search engine that aimed to predict the buyer's mood.
Some Valley observers, notably VentureBeat, have been critical of Ron Conway for his investments during the Internet boom, believing them to be "symbolic of the era’s hubris."[4] Conway developed a reputation for throwing lavish cocktail parties and raising cash from a diverse group of celebrities, sportspeople and political figures such as Henry Kissinger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods and Shaquille O'Neal, which he then ploughed into start-ups.
Despite this criticism, Conway's first fund, Angel Investors I, raised and invested in 1998, generated a seven-fold return, and his second, raised and invested during 1999, saw a 1.5-fold return (1.5x). The latter assumes a $500 share price for Google, a company that Conway had backed with a small portion of his funds. Since then he is thought to have made more investments than anyone else in Web 2.0, supporting more than 100 companies since June 2005, which is when he sold his interest in first two Angel funds to CSFB, and began investing his own money.
Some companies he has backed are Aster Data Systems, AppNexus, Bring Light, Digg, Zooomr, BuzzLogic, MerchantCircle, Knewton, Perenety, PBwiki, Rupture and Vizu.
Conway is active in community and philanthropic activities, serving as Vice Chairman of UCSF Medical Foundation in San Francisco and also as co-chair of the “Fight for Mike” Homer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). He is on the development committees of UCLA, St. Francis High School, Sacred Heart Schools, The UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, Packard Children's Hospital, Legacy Ventures, and Ronald McDonald House at Stanford.
He is also on the Benefit Committee of the Tiger Woods Foundation.[5]
References
- ^ CNET News on eBay's acquisition of PayPal, July, 2002
- ^ Crunchbase on Baseline Ventures, June, 2008
- ^ Gary Rivlin on the 'Godfather of Silicon Valley'
- ^ VentureBeat on Conway, December, 2006
- ^ O'Reilly Conferences on Ron Conway