Clearstone Venture Partners

Clearstone Venture Partners is an early stage venture capital firm focused on IT investing with offices in Santa Monica, CA, Palo Alto, CA, and Mumbai, India. Founded in 1997, as Idealab Capital Partners, Clearstone is responsible for the early-stage funding of many successful startups including PayPal (IPO, acquired by eBay), Overture.com (IPO, acquired by Yahoo), Internet Brands/CarsDirect (NASDAQ: INET), NetZero/United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD), MP3.com (IPO, acquired by Vivendi), Meru Networks (NASDAQ: MERU), Integrien (acquired by VMware), Ankeena (acquired by Juniper), Kazeon Systems (Acquired by EMC) and Mimosa Systems (acquired by Iron Mountain).

Managing Directors

• Bill Elkus, Founder
• Jim Armstrong
• William Quigley
• Sumant Mandal
• Erik Lassila

External links

• Clearstone Venture Partners

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