Mohr Davidow Ventures
 | |
| Industry | Venture Capital |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1983 |
| Headquarters | Menlo Park, California, United States |
Key people | Bill Ericson, Jon Feiber |
| Products | Investments |
| Website | www.mdv.com |
Mohr Davidow Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology companies. For over 30 years, Mohr Davidow has helped to build more than 250 startup companies. The firm has $1.85B [1] under management. Its managing and general partners are engaged with over 50 portfolio companies, assisted by Venture Partner Geoffrey Moore, Emeritus Partners Nancy Schoendorf and Bill Davidow.[2] The company is located in Menlo Park, California on Sand Hill Road.
History
Mohr Davidow was founded in 1983 [3] by Larry Mohr and Bill Davidow, formerly senior vice president at Intel during the time the 8086 architecture became the industry standard. The firm's investments initially focused on semiconductor startups and related high-tech companies. Notable early investments was the funding of MIPS Technologies (1985), the seed-funding of Rambus (1990),[4] Agile Software (1995), the investment in Zip2 (1995) for $3.5M started by Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal) which sold in 1999 for $307M,[5] and Brocade (1996). Mohr Davidow continued growing with its investment in Shutterfly,[6] ONI Systems, nLIGHT, as well as Panasas, Pacific Biosciences[7] (public offering October 27, 2010), Proofpoint, Inc. and Kabbage.
Managing and General Partners
- Managing Partner: Bill Ericson - Investment Focus: data revolution that is driving the enterprise, consumer media and health care. He serves on the Boards of Ticketfly, AudienceScience, and RocketFuel, as well as the Board of Northwestern University School of Law.
- Managing Partner: Jon Feiber. Serves on the board of Carrier IQ, IronKey, Proofpoint, and Panasas. Mr. Feiber also serves on California Institute of Technology's Information Science and Technology Advisory Board.[8] Mr. Feiber is currently teaching a class at Stanford University on entrepreneurship[9] titled The Lean Launch Pad: Teaching Entrepreneurship as a Management Science.
- General Partner: Josh Green - Investment Focus: primarily on the nexus of cleantech and information technology. Josh Green joined Mohr Davidow in 2006. He serves on the Boards of iRhythm Technologies, Simbol Materials, and Genomatica.
- General Partner: Jim Smith - Investment Focus: hardware startups that will provide the infrastructure for what Mohr Davidow calls “the data deluge.” Mr. Smith joined MDV in 1999. He serves on the Boards of ParAccel, Mantara and Aryaka.
- General Partner: Bryan Stolle - entrepreneurial focus on technology companies. He joined Mohr Davidow in 2008. He serves on the Boards of Coupa and Rally Software. As a volunteer he serves on the boards of the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum and Montalvo Arts Center.
- Partner: Erik Straser - Investment Focus: technology-driven companies that can bring new supply or efficiency to the industrial market. He joined Mohr Davidow in 1998. He serves on the Board of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford.
Investment Areas of Focus
- Technology: Communications, Networking, Data, Storage, Management, Cloud
- Healthcare: Monitoring, Management, Genomics, Diagnostics
- Cleantech: Electrical, Grid, Storage
Significant Investments
MDV funded companies that have gone public:
| Company | IPO Date |
|---|---|
| Actuate | 1998 |
| Agile Software | 1999 |
| Auspex Systems | 1993 |
| Cats Software | 1995 |
| Accure Software | 1999 |
| S3 | 1993 |
| Vantive | 1995 |
| Vitesse | 1991 |
| Power Integrations | 1997 |
| FormFactor | 2003 |
| Pacific Biosciences | 2010[10] |
| Shutterfly | 2006 |
| Power Integrations | 1997 |
| Broadbase | 1999 |
| Critical Path | 1999 |
| Viant | 1999 |
| Rambus | 1997 |
Successful returns via acquisition include MDV portfolio companies:
| Company | Acquisition | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Parallele Bioscience | Affymetrix | 2005 |
| Collabra | NetScape | 1995 |
| Freshwater Software | Mercury Interactive | 2001 |
| Ipsilon Networks | Nokia | 1997 |
| Kalpana | Cisco | 1994 |
| Numerical Technologies | Synopsys | 2003 |
| Oni Systems | Ciena | 2002 |
| nChip | Flextronics | 1995 |
| Silicon Architects | Synopsys | 1995 |
| Knowledge Adventure | CUC International | 1997 |
| ICverify | Cybercash | 1998 |
| Epigram | Broadcom | 1999 |
| Investools | Telescan | 1999 |
| Zip2 | Compaq | 1999 |
| Kendara | Excite@Home | 2000 |
| Sabrix | Thomson-Reuters | 2009 |
| Recurrent Energy | Sharp Corporation | 2010[11] |
Other Activities
Member and Sponsor of the Stanford Racing Team.[12][13]
References
- ↑ Crunchbase, "Mohr Davidow Ventures"
- ↑ Mercury News interview: Bill Davidow, partner emeritus, Mohr Davidow Ventures (March 2011)
- ↑ LinkedIn: Mohr Davidow Ventures
- ↑ Throwing Cold Water on Moore's Law
- ↑ Musk Makes Rockets for Stars as Tesla Taunts Ferrari on Earth
- ↑ Shutterfly Press Release 2/24/00
- ↑ Pacific Biosciences' $600M Dollar Decoder Ring
- ↑ California Institute of Technology IST Advisory Board
- ↑ Lean LaunchPad: A Crash Course in Startup Success
- ↑ Pacific Biosciences Goes Public
- ↑ Sharp to Buy Solar Project Developer Recurrent Energy for up to $305M
- ↑ Stanford team's win in robot car race nets $2 million prize
- ↑ Race-Winning “Stanley” Robot at the Museum
External links
Further reading
Books by Geoffrey Moore, Venture Partner
- Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-tech Products to Mainstream Customers (1991, revised 1999) - ISBN 0-06-051712-3
- Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge (1995) revised as Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets (2004) - ISBN 0-88730-824-4
- The Gorilla Game: An Investor's Guide to Picking Winners in High Technology (with Paul Johnson and Tom Kippola, 1998) revised as The Gorilla Game : Picking Winners in High Technology (1999)
- Living on the Fault Line : Managing for Shareholder Value in the Age of the Internet (2000), revised as Living on the Fault Line, Revised Edition: Managing for Shareholder Value in Any Economy (2002)
- Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution (2005)
- Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past (2011)
Books by Bill Davidow, Partner Emeritus
- Marketing High Technology (1986)
- Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon, with Bro Uttal
- The Virtual Corporation: Structuring and Revitalizing the Corporation for the 21st Century (1993), with Michael S. Malone
- Overconnected: The Promise and Threat of the Internet, Delphinium Books (2011)