Kleiner Perkins facts for kids
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Formerly
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Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) |
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| Private | |
| Industry | Venture capital |
| Founded | 1972 in California |
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| Headquarters |
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U.S.
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| Products | Investments |
Kleiner Perkins is a famous American company. It helps new and growing businesses by giving them money. This is called venture capital. The company used to be known as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB).
Since it started in 1972, Kleiner Perkins has supported over 900 different businesses. Some of these include well-known names like Amazon.com, Google, Twitter, and Electronic Arts. By 2019, they had raised about $9 billion to invest in these companies.
Kleiner Perkins has its main office in Menlo Park, California. This area is part of Silicon Valley, a hub for technology companies. They also have offices in San Francisco and Shanghai, China. Many people call Kleiner Perkins one of the most important venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.
Contents
How Kleiner Perkins Started
Kleiner Perkins began in 1972. It was first called Kleiner Perkins. Later, Frank J. Caufield and Brook Byers joined as partners. The name then changed to Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB).
The company is named after its four founders: Eugene Kleiner, Tom Perkins, Frank J. Caufield, and Brook Byers. Eugene Kleiner was a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor. Tom Perkins was an early leader at Hewlett-Packard. Brook Byers joined the team in 1977.
Kleiner Perkins was the first venture capital firm to open an office on Sand Hill Road. This road later became famous for having many venture capital companies.
Being in Menlo Park, California, helped Kleiner Perkins. They were close to many new technology companies. In the early 1970s, Santa Clara Valley had many semiconductor companies. These companies made parts for computers.
Even when the stock market had problems in 1974, Kleiner Perkins kept investing. By 1996, they had invested $880 million in about 260 companies. Important people like John Doerr and Vinod Khosla also became part of the firm.
In 2005, Colin Powell joined Kleiner Perkins as a "strategic" partner. Al Gore became a partner in 2007. Mary Meeker joined in 2010. She later left in 2019 to start her own company.
Amazing Investments
Kleiner Perkins has invested in many exciting companies. They look for businesses that are just starting or are growing fast.
In 2008, they started the iFund. This was a $100 million fund to invest in ideas related to the iPhone. They doubled this investment a year later. In 2010, they launched a $250 million fund called sFund. This fund focused on social media startups. They worked with companies like Facebook and Amazon.com on this.
The firm has been an early investor in over 900 technology and life sciences companies. Some of these include:
- Amazon.com
- America Online
- Beyond Meat
- Compaq
- Electronic Arts
- Genentech
- Netscape
- Nest
- Sun Microsystems
Some of their current investments include DJI, Coursera, Farmers Business Network, Desktop Metal, Gusto, Plaid, Robinhood, and Slack.
In 1994, Kleiner Perkins invested $5 million in Netscape. They made a lot of money when Netscape became a public company. They also invested $8 million in Cerent. This investment was worth about $2 billion when Cerent was sold in 1999.
In 1999, Kleiner Perkins invested $12 million in Google. As of 2019, Google's parent company was worth about $831 billion. Their early investment of $8 million in Amazon.com also brought in over $1 billion in returns.
Key People at Kleiner Perkins
The firm has several important partners who manage investments:
- John Doerr (chairman)
- Brook Byers (founder)
- Al Gore
- Ilya Fushman
- Mamoon Hamid
- Wen Hsieh
- Bucky Moore
- Ted Schlein
Key Advisors
These people offer important advice to the firm:
- Colin Powell
- Randy Komisar
- Bing Gordon
- Eric Feng
See also
- List of venture capital firms
