Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Infobox_Company
company_name = Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
company_
company_type = Limited liability company
foundation = 1972
key_people = Eugene Kleiner
location =
industry = Venture Capital
products = Investments, private equity funds
assets =
homepage = [http://www.kpcb.com/ www.kpcb.com]
num_employees =

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.Fact|date=November 2007 This is similar to the Japanese keiretsu style of company structure.Fact|date=November 2007

Investments

The company has been an early investor in more than 300 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. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903E4DF1339F937A25750C0A962948260 "Executive Joins Kleiner Perkins"] , "The New York Times", March 14, 1984.] 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 October 2007 Google's market capitalization stood at over $222 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.

In April 2008, it was reported that KPCB was raising funds for a $400 million growth-stage clean-technology fund. [cite news |first=Alexander |last=Haislip |authorlink= |coauthors=Dan Primack |title=Kleiner Perkins raising green growth fund |url=http://www.pewnews.com/story.asp?sectioncode=36&storycode=44384 |work=Private Equity Week |publisher= |date=24 April, 2008 |accessdate=2008-04-27 ]

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 [cite news|first=Zachary |last=Coile |title = Gore joins Valley's Kleiner Perkins to push green business |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/13/BAUCTAV4I.DTL |work=San Francisco Chronicle |date=Tuesday, November 13, 2007 |accessdate = 2007-11-13] cite web |url=http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/greentech/ |title=Greentech Initiative |accessdate=2007-11-13 |publisher=Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers |doi= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ] as part of a collaboration between KPCB and Gore's firm Generation Investment Management to promote green technology, business and policy solutions.cite web |url=http://www.kpcb.com/news/articles/2007_11_12.html |title=Generation Investment Management and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Create International Alliance to Accelerate Global Climate Solutions |accessdate=2007-11-13 |date=2007-11-12 |publisher=Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Generation Investment Management |pages= |language= |doi= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ] In 2008, John Gage of Sun Microsystems joined Gore as a Partner. [ [http://www.kpcb.com/news/articles/2008_06_09.html John Gage Joins Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as Partner] ] cite web
url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9964131-54.html
title=Sun's John Gage joins Al Gore in clean-tech investing
accessdate= 2008-06-12
author=
last= Olsen
first= Stephanie
authorlink=
coauthors=
date= June 9, 2008
work=
publisher=]

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.cite news |first=Anupreeta |last=Das |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Silicon Valley gets behind electric cars |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/22/technology/cars.php |work=International Herald Tribune |publisher= |date=2008-04-22 |accessdate=2008-10-06 ]

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.

References

External links

* [http://www.kpcb.com/ Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers]
* [http://edcorner.stanford.edu/materialSearch.html?keywords=KPCB&x=0&y=0 Videos of Khosla, Doerr, Komisar] , speaking at Stanford