Benchmark Capital
Encyclopedia
Benchmark Capital is a venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startup
Startup company
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets...

s. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba
Ariba
Ariba is a software and information technology services company located in Sunnyvale, California.- Early life :Ariba was founded in 1996 by Bobby Lent, Boris Putanec, Paul Touw, Rob Desantis, Ed Kinsey, Paul Hegarty, and Keith Krach on the idea of using the Internet to enable companies to...

, Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is head quartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services...

, Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

, Tropos Networks
Tropos Networks
Tropos Networks was founded in 2000 and is a United States-based provider of IP broadband mesh network solutions for building utility distribution area networks for the smart grid and smart cities. Tropos systems aggregate communications from utilities for multiple applications with the goal of...

 and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

. Benchmark Capital is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners. The firm's general partners include Alex Balkanski, Matt Cohler
Matt Cohler
Matt Cohler is an American venture capitalist based in Silicon Valley. He worked as Vice President of Product Management for Facebook until June 2008 and is currently a general partner at Benchmark Capital....

, Bruce Dunlevie, Peter Fenton
Peter Fenton (venture capitalist)
Peter Fenton is an American venture capitalist based in Silicon Valley and is currently a general partner at Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm...

, Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley is a general partner at Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. His current investments include: Avvo, Glassdoor, LiveOps, Move Networks, Nanosolar, OpenTable, Red 5 Studios, Second Life, Tropos Networks, Vudu, Inc. and Zillow.com...

, Kevin Harvey, Bob Kagle
Bob Kagle
Robert Kagle is a Director at eBay and a partner at Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. In addition to eBay, Kagle sits on the Board of Directors for several companies including: E-Loan, Jamba Juice, Logoworks, Mint.com, Prosper, uShip, and ZipRealty.Kagle's investment in eBay...

, Mitch Lasky and Steve Spurlock.

Investments

Benchmark has invested in more than 150 startups since its inception in 1995, including Infinera
Infinera
Infinera Corporation is a manufacturer of long-haul WDM optical transmission equipment for the service provider market.Infinera claims to have changed the world of optical telecommunications with its “Digital...

, MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...

, OpenTable
OpenTable
OpenTable is an online real-time restaurant reservation service founded by Chuck Templeton in San Francisco, CA in 1998. Reservations are free to end users; the company charges restaurants monthly and per-reservation fees for their use of the system. In 1999, the website began operations...

, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...

, Tellme Networks
Tellme Networks
Tellme. Networks, Inc. is a company founded in 1999 by Mike McCue and Angus Davis, based out of Mountain View, California, in the United States, that specializes in telephone-based applications....

, Yelp, Inc., CTERA Networks
CTERA Networks
CTERA Networks is a cloud storage and data protection hardware and software company that specializes in cloud storage gateways. It provides network storage combined with asynchronously replicated off-site cloud storage...

, Lithium Technologies
Lithium Technologies
Lithium Technologies provides Social CRM solutions for the enterprise. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Lithium has additional offices in San Francisco, London, and Zürich....

 and Zillow, as well as franchise companies like eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

, Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is head quartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services...

, Tropos Networks
Tropos Networks
Tropos Networks was founded in 2000 and is a United States-based provider of IP broadband mesh network solutions for building utility distribution area networks for the smart grid and smart cities. Tropos systems aggregate communications from utilities for multiple applications with the goal of...

 and Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

. The firm manages nearly $3 billion in committed capital and has been widely recognized for its commitment to open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

. Other notable investments include AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

, 1-800-Flowers
1-800-Flowers
1-800-Flowers is a floral and gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. It was one of the first retailers to use a 24 x 7 toll-free telephone number and the Internet for direct sales to consumers....

, Ebags.com
Ebags.com
eBags.com, a division of eBags, Inc., is an American electronic commerce company founded in 1998. Based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. The primary purpose of eBags.com is to be an online retailer of handbags, backpacks, business cases, urban bags, luggage, and travel accessories. eBags.com...

, Friendster
Friendster
Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore....

, JAMDAT, MetaCafe
Metacafe
Metacafe is a web site that specializes in short-form video entertainment in the categories of movies, video games, sports, music and TV.The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv...

, Palm Computing, Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha is a stock market blog that provides free stock market analysis primarily from money managers, investment newsletter writers, and the general public. Alpha is a financial term referring to a stock's performance, relative to the market indexes used by fund managers. So, fund managers...

, ServiceSource, and Zipcar
Zipcar
Zipcar is an American membership-based car sharing company providing automobile reservations to its members, billable by the hour or day. Zipcar was founded in 2000 by Cambridge, Massachusetts residents Antje Danielson and Robin Chase, and is now led by Scott Griffith, Chairman and Chief Executive...

.

Twitter

Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 is a social networking and microblogging service, enabling users to send and read messages called tweets
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

. The free service can be accessed via the Twitter website, through third-party apps, and on mobile devices. In February 2009, Benchmark Capital participated in Twitter's $35 million Series C funding followed by participation in Twitter's $100 million Series D funding in September 2009. Peter Fenton serves on Twitter's Board of Directors. As of December 2010, Twitter had raised a total of $360 million in funding and is valued at $3.7 billion.

Instagram

Instagram is a free photo sharing application for the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 that allows users to add special effects/filters to their pictures. The pictures can then be shared with other Instagram users and sent to sites such as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, Twitter, or Tumblr
Tumblr
Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th...

. Benchmark Capital led Instagram's $7 million Series A round. Matt Cohler serves on Instagram's board of directors.

Uber

Uber is a San Francisco-based company that helps iPhone and Android users connect with limousine drivers. Users can use the app to locate a car to pick them up and can facilitate payment with a credit card via the application. The service is available in San Francisco, Palo Alto and New York City. Benchmark Capital led Uber’s latest funding round of $11 million. Bill Gurley serves on Uber's board of directors.

Zendesk

Zendesk provides web-based help desk software with a support ticket system and a self-service customer support platform. Zendesk manages customer service responses for companies such as Groupon
Groupon
Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. Groupon was launched in November 2008, the first market for Groupon was Chicago, followed soon thereafter by Boston, New York City, and Toronto...

, Twitter, and RackSpace
Rackspace
Rackspace US, Inc. is an IT hosting company based in San Antonio, Texas. The company also has offices in Australia, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Hong Kong, and data centers operating in Texas, Illinois, Virginia, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong in late 2008...

. Benchmark Capital led Zendesk's $6 million Series B funding in August 2009. As of Dec. 2010, Zendesk had raised a total of $25.5 million from Benchmark Capital, Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures
Charles River Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in technology and new media companies.The firm, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts and Menlo Park, California, was founded in 1970 to commercialise research that came out of MIT...

, and Matrix Partners
Matrix Partners
Matrix Partners is a US based private equity investment firm focusing on venture capital investments. The firm invests in seed and early stage companies in the United States and India, particularly in the software, communications, semiconductors, data storage, Internet or wireless sectors.The firm...

.

ServiceSource International

ServiceSource International helps increase service revenue for hardware, software, healthcare and life sciences companies. In December 2004, Benchmark Capital invested $10 million in ServiceSource. The company's shares rose 21.8 percent following its initial public offering (IPO) in March 2011. Shares closed on their first day of trading at $12.18 on the Nasdaq
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...

 Stock Market, compared to the $10 IPO price and above the $7.50 to $9 per share price originally planned. The company sold 11.9 million shares in its first day of trading, raising $119 million. Bruce Dunlevie, a Benchmark Capital general partner, is on ServiceSource's board of directors.

Zipcar

Zipcar
Zipcar
Zipcar is an American membership-based car sharing company providing automobile reservations to its members, billable by the hour or day. Zipcar was founded in 2000 by Cambridge, Massachusetts residents Antje Danielson and Robin Chase, and is now led by Scott Griffith, Chairman and Chief Executive...

 provides hourly car rentals to over 575,000 members in cities and college campuses in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Benchmark Capital provided Zipcar's first institutional round of funding of $10 million in 2005. During Zipcar's highly publicized April 2011 IPO, shares jumped 67 percent and closed with a 56 percent gain on the company's first day of trading, signaling to some that IPOs were rebounding after the financial crisis. The company raised more than $174 million by issuing 9.68 million shares. Benchmark Capital's Bob Kagle
Bob Kagle
Robert Kagle is a Director at eBay and a partner at Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. In addition to eBay, Kagle sits on the Board of Directors for several companies including: E-Loan, Jamba Juice, Logoworks, Mint.com, Prosper, uShip, and ZipRealty.Kagle's investment in eBay...

 is on Zipcar's board of directors.

Balderton Capital

Benchmark Capital founded a London-based VC fund in 2000, originally called Benchmark Europe, now Balderton Capital.
Both firms have always been managed separately, and Balderton formally became an independent firm in 2007. However, Balderton maintains close ties with Benchmark Capital. Balderton has raised 4 funds, totalling almost $2B, and its investments include MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...

, Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....

, Yoox
Yoox
YOOX Group S.p.A is an Italian internet mail order retailer of men's and women's multibrand clothing and accessories. Founded by Federico Marchetti, a former investment banker, in Zola Predosa near Bologna in 2000, Yoox Group has become a profitable e-commerce company that serves "more than 100...

 & Betfair
Betfair
Betfair is the world's largest Internet betting exchange. The company is based in Hammersmith in West London, England. Since Betfair was launched in June 2000 it has become the largest online betting company in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Betfair claim to have over 3...

.

External links

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