Khosla Ventures

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Khosla Ventures
TypePrivate
IndustryVenture capital
Founded2004; 17 years ago (2004)
FounderVinod Khosla
HeadquartersMenlo Park, California, United States
ProductsInvestments
Total assets$5 billion (September 2017)
Websitewww.khoslaventures.com

Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, silicon technology, biotechnology, healthcare and clean technology sectors.[1][2]

The firm is based in Menlo Park, California, and manages investor capital as well as earlier funds funded by Khosla. In September 2017, Khosla Ventures had about $5 billion in assets under management.[3]

History[]

The firm was founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, a former general partner of Kleiner Perkins.[4] The firm's first two investment vehicles were funded with Khosla's own personal capital and were not open to institutional investors. In March 2009, Pierre Lamond became General Partner.[5] In December 2009, Khosla completed fundraising for two new funds, to invest in cleantech and information technology start-ups.

Khosla Ventures Fund III secured $1 billion of investor commitments to invest in traditional early stage and growth stage companies. Khosla also raised $300 million for Khosla Seed, which will invest in higher-risk opportunities and science experiments.[6] The firm has invested in bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, wind, battery, engines, LED, HVAC efficiency and other environmentally friendly technologies.[7][8]

Some companies funded by Khosla Ventures include: Academia.edu, Amyris, Bloom Energy, Plastiq Inc.,[9] Cosaint Technologies,[citation needed] DB Networks, EcoMotors, GreatPoint Energy, Impossible Foods, Instacart, LS9 Inc.,[10] Neverware, Panzura, SeaMicro, Snip.it, Tapingo, Thync, Relcy,[11][12] and Vectra Networks Inc..[13]

Its investments also include AliveCor,[citation needed] AltaRock Energy,[14] Amyris,[citation needed] AppNexus,[citation needed] Ayasdi,[citation needed] Big Switch Networks,[citation needed] Blockstream,[citation needed] Boku,[citation needed] Boosted,[citation needed] Bridge International Academies,[15] Cadre,[citation needed] Climate Corporation,[citation needed] Cylance,[citation needed] DoorDash[16] and Flow Neuroscience.[citation needed]

As of October 2015, Khosla Ventures was one of the five largest and most active investors in the space sector, which has had over US$10 billion of private capital invested in it since 2005.[17]

In February 2021, Khosla filed plans for the public offerings of three Special-purpose acquisition companies (SPAC), which intend to raise a total of $1.2 billion for the purpose of acquiring and taking public three private companies.[18]

Khosla Labs[]

Khosla Labs is an investment and business-incubation firm founded by Vinod Khosla. In 2013, Khosla said that he started the company to explore the opportunities around Aadhar, the recently-implemented unique identity number system for residents of India. Khosla Labs has an Aadhaar-enabled authentication and verification product, called Aadhaar Bridge, and is licensed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) (which collects the data for the system) to use the demographic data of Aadhar holders. The company played an important role in the 'Coalition for Aadhar' by petitioning the Indian Supreme Court in 2018. There has been criticism around the private sector- UIDAI connections, and Khosla Lab has been used an example. The company has had many executives who were previously part of UIDAI. Khosla Labs has given a loan of 21 lakh to an NGO called eGovernments Foundation, of which Nilekani himself was a founder. Besides Nilekani, Sanjay Jain, the chief product manager for the UIDAI from 2010 to 2012 then went on to be an entrepreneur at Khosla Labs. Similarly, Vivek Raghavan was a biometrics volunteer with UIDAI from 2010 to 2013, and he was a director of Khosla Labs until 2016.[19]

References[]

  1. ^ Lacy, Sarah (July 3, 2009). "Vinod Khosla, Risk Junkie". TechCrunch.
  2. ^ "Bloomberg Businessweek Profile". Businessweek.com.
  3. ^ Kolodny, Lora (2017-09-07). "Khosla Ventures adds women to investment team — Simmons and Gulati". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
  4. ^ "Khosla Ventures Founder Vinod Khosla Joins Slush 2017 - Slush 2017". Slush 2017. 2017-11-28. Retrieved 2018-01-07.
  5. ^ Marshall, Matt (3 March 2009). "Pierre Lamond, the VC who scared the YouTube guys, joins Khosla". VentureBeat. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  6. ^ Khosla Ventures piles up $1 billion for green tech. cnet news, September 1, 2009
  7. ^ Venture Firm’s ‘Green’ Funds Top $1 Billion. New York Times, August 31, 2009
  8. ^ Wauters, Robin (May 19, 2011). "Khosla Ventures Is Raising, Like, A Billion Dollars". TechCrunch.
  9. ^ "Ditch your checkbook: Plastiq nabs $10M so that you can pay for anything with a credit card". VentureBeat. 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2019-06-10.
  10. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20130318113024/http://www.ls9.com/about/founders
  11. ^ "Relcy Is Building A PageRank-Style Mobile App Search Engine With $9M From Khosla And Sequoia". TechCrunch. 17 July 2014.
  12. ^ Darrell, Larry (9 October 2014). "Thync Raises $13 Million In Funding Led By Khosla Ventures; Combines Neuroscience And Consumer Tech". Bidnessetc. Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
  13. ^ "Vectra raises $36 million for its AI cybersecurity technology". 2018-02-21. Retrieved 2018-04-16.
  14. ^ "Khosla Ventures Investments". golden.com. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
  15. ^ "Slum schools' investors in Sh5bn expansion bid". Business Daily. 2013-11-07. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  16. ^ "BRIEF-DoorDash raised $127 million in series C round of financing -..." Reuters. 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  17. ^ Nordrum, Amy (2015-10-09). "Space Advocate Makes Business Case For Private Company Exploration Of Extraterrestrial Resources". International Business Times. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  18. ^ Schubarth, Cromwell (13 February 2021). "Khosla Ventures gets into the SPAC boom with plans to raise $1.2B in 3 IPOs". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  19. ^ Thaker, Aria. "Aadhaar's mixing of public risk and private profit". The Caravan. Retrieved 2019-07-22.

External links[]

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