Benchmark (venture capital firm)

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Benchmark
Type Limited liability company
Industry Venture capital
Founded 1995
Headquarters Menlo Park, California, United States
San Francisco, California, United States
Website www.benchmark.com

Benchmark is an American venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of several successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which made it worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999.[1] Other high-profile investments have included or currently include Instagram, Zillow, Zipcar, Zendesk, Yelp, Demandforce, and Proofpoint[2] as well as Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red Hat, and Twitter.[3] Benchmark is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners.[4] The "maverick" firm[5] differs from most VC firms, which are named for their founders and are structured hierarchically; Benchmark is "a lean operation in which its six full-time partners share profits equally."[5]

The Menlo Park, California-based firm announced in May 2012 it would be expanding by opening an office with more than 10,000 square feet in San Francisco’s emerging tech corridor, the Mid-Market neighborhood.[2]

General partners

The firm's general partners include Matt Cohler, Bruce Dunlevie, Peter Fenton, Bill Gurley, Kevin Harvey, and Mitch Lasky.[6][7][8]

Investments

Benchmark has invested in more than 250 startups[9] since its inception in 1995, including Art.com/Allposters.com, CTERA Networks, Infinera, Lithium Technologies,[10] Marin Software,[11] Minted, MySQL, OpenTable, Second Life, Snapchat,[12] Talend, Tellme Networks, Yelp, Inc., Zillow, and Zuora,[13] as well as franchise companies like eBay, Juniper Networks, Tictail, Tropos Networks, and Red Hat.[14] The firm manages nearly $3 billion in committed capital and has been widely recognized for its commitment to open source.[15] Other notable investments include AOL, 1-800-Flowers, Ebags.com, Friendster, JAMDAT, MetaCafe, Palm Computing, Seeking Alpha, ServiceSource, and Zipcar.[16] Benchmark made its first China deal, Baixing, in 2009.

Since early 2011, Benchmark has had 25 exits, including 10 IPOs and 15 mergers and acquisitions, representing a total market value of more than $55 billion (as of January 2014).[9]

In September 2013, Benchmark invested $7 million in CyanogenMod, which is based on Google's Android Open Source Project.[17]

References

  1. ↑ "EBAY'S IPO RETURN IS JUST PEANUTS TO SOME". Nl.newsbank.com. Retrieved 2012-11-16. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Levy, Ari (27 April 2012). "Benchmark Capital Scores With Instagram, Demandforce and IPOs". Bloomberg. Retrieved 22 August 2012. 
  3. ↑ "Benchmark Capital". Company Profile. Mashable. Retrieved 22 August 2012. 
  4. ↑ Stross, Randall (2009-12-29). eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work. Ballantine Books (May 29, 2001). p. 89. ISBN 978-0-345-42889-9. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Hempel, Jessi (11 February 2013). "Bill Gurley: The sage of Silicon Valley". Fortune. Retrieved 2 May 2013. 
  6. ↑ "VentureBeat Facebook’s Matt Cohler leaves for Benchmark Capital". 2008-06-19. 
  7. ↑ "Peter Fenton: Prominent VC, successful triathlete". 2007-05-11. 
  8. ↑ "Benchmark Capital hires Lasky, of Jamdat fame". 2007-03-19. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Benchmark Capital". Company Profile. CrunchBase. Retrieved 04 February 2014. 
  10. ↑ O'Malley, Gavin (January 8, 2010). "Social Media Tools Provider Lithium Raises $18M". MediaPost. 
  11. ↑ Deal Book, "New York Times", April 7, 2008, "http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/benchmark-leads-series-b-for-marin-software/"
  12. ↑ Wortham, Jenna (8 February 2013). "A Growing App Lets You See It, Then You Don’t". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 May 2013. 
  13. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick (13 March 2008). "Benchmark and Benioff Put $6.5 Million Into Zuora to Create a Salesforce for Online Billing". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 May 2013. 
  14. ↑ "Benchmark, Marissa Mayer Put $5.5M In Stationery Design And Retail Site Minted". TechCrunch. 
  15. ↑ Asay, Matt (2008-04-01). "Open-source venture investing hits an all-time high | The Open Road - CNET News". Cnet.com. Retrieved 2012-11-16. 
  16. ↑ http://www.benchmark.com/companies
  17. ↑ Cutler, Kim-Mai (18 September 2013). "Cyanogen Mod Raises $7M To Find A Direct-To-Consumer Route For Android Firmware". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 October 2013. 

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