Benchmark (venture capital firm)

Benchmark

Type	Limited liability company
Industry	Venture capital
Founded	1995 (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 numerous successful startups including Dropbox,^[1] Twitter, Uber,^[2] Snapchat,^[3] and Instagram.^[4]

In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which made it worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999.^[5]

Other high-profile investments include CyanogenMod,^[6] Domo,^[7] New Relic,^[8] Nextdoor,^[9] Stitch Fix,^[10] WeWork,^[11] Yelp,^[12] Zendesk,^[13] Zillow^[14] and Zipcar.^[15]

Benchmark is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners.^[16] The "maverick" firm^[17] 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."^[17]

The firm announced in May 2012 it would be expanding beyond its Menlo Park, California headquarters by opening a second headquarters with more than 10,000 square feet in San Francisco’s emerging tech corridor, the Mid-Market neighborhood.^[18]

Key people

Benchmark Capital was founded in 1995 by four partners. Bob Kagle was a marketing expert with VC experience at Technology Venture Investors. Bruce Dunlevie also came from VC experience at Merrill Pickard Anderson & Eyre. Andy Rachleff had a background in network equipment and telecommunications. Kevin Harvey had invested in a database software company while at Merrill Pickard.

The firm's general partners are Matt Cohler, Peter Fenton, Bill Gurley, Mitch Lasky, Eric Vishria, and Sarah Tavel.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24]}

Investments

Benchmark has invested in more than 250 startups^[25] since its inception in 1995, including Art.com/Allposters.com, Baixing, CTERA Networks, Confluent,^[26] Cockroach,^[27] Cyanogen,^[28] Discord,^[29] Duo,^[30] Domo,^[31] Docker,^[32] Dropbox, eBay, HackerOne,^[33] Instagram,^[34] Juniper Networks, Marin Software,^[35] Minted, MySQL, New Relic,^[36] Nextdoor,^[37] OpenTable, ResearchGate,^[38] Snapchat,^[3] Solv,^[39] Stitch Fix,^[40] Twitter,^[41] Tellme Networks, Uber,^[42] Vessel,^[43] Yelp, Inc., WeWork,^[44] Zillow, and Zuora,^[45][46] The firm manages nearly $3 billion in committed capital and has been widely recognized for its commitment to open source.^[47] Other notable investments include AOL, 1-800-Flowers, Ebags.com, Friendster, JAMDAT, MetaCafe, Palm Computing, Seeking Alpha, ServiceSource, Xapo,^[48] and Zipcar.^[49]

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).^[25] Over the years, by 2015 Benchmark’s eight funds have paid out $22.6 billion to investors, and its backers received a 1,000% gain—net of fees—over the past decade.^[1]

By February 2013, Snapchat confirmed a $13.5 million Series A funding round led by Benchmark Capital, which valued the company at between $60 million and $70 million.^[50] Beyond the two founders, the two biggest shareholders for the planned early 2017 Snap IPO were Benchmark and Lightspeed Venture Partners, both prior Snap investors and venture-capital firms from Silicon Valley. They held a combined stake of about 20%.^[51]

References

External links

• CrunchBase Profile

Private equity and venture capital
Basic investment types	Buyout Venture Mezzanine Growth Secondaries Equity co-investment
History	History of private equity and venture capital Early history of private equity Private equity in the 1980s Private equity in the 1990s Private equity in the 2000s
Terms and concepts	Buyout Financial sponsor Management buyout Divisional buyout Buy–sell agreement Leveraged recapitalization Dividend recapitalization Venture Angel investor Business incubator Post-money valuation Pre-money valuation Seed money Startup company Venture capital financing Venture debt Venture round Structure Private equity firms and funds Limited partnership Limited liability company Carried interest Management fee Publicly traded private equity Business Development Company Venture capital trust Private investment in public equity (PIPE) Pledge fund
Investors	Corporations Institutional investors Pension funds Insurance companies Fund of funds Endowments Foundations Investment banks Merchant banks Commercial banks High-net-worth individuals Family offices Sovereign wealth funds Crowdfunding
Related financial terms	AUM Cap table Capital call Capital commitment Capital structure Distribution waterfall EBITDA Envy ratio High-yield debt IPO IRR Leverage Liquidation preference M&A PME Taxation of private equity and hedge funds Undercapitalization Vintage year
Private equity and venture capital investors Private equity firms Venture capital firms Angel investors Portfolio companies