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Khosla Ventures

From Wikipedia - Reading time: 9 min
Khosla Ventures
Company typePrivate
IndustryVenture capital
Founded2004; 20 years ago (2004)
FounderVinod Khosla
HeadquartersMenlo Park, California, U.S.
ProductsInvestments
Total assets$15 billion (October 2021)
Websitekhoslaventures.com

Khosla Ventures is a private American venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by entrepreneur Vinod Khosla in 2004.

The firm works with early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, artificial intelligence,mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. It is known for making early capital investments in startups such as Impossible Foods, Instacart, Affirm, DoorDash Square and OpenAI.[1]

History

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The firm was founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, a former general partner of Kleiner Perkins.[2] Khosla Ventures first two investment vehicles were funded with his own personal capital and were not open to institutional investors. In March 2009, Pierre Lamond became General Partner.[3] 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 would invest in higher-risk opportunities and science experiments.[4] By 2013, the company was considered a one of the top investors in clean technology and had invested in more than 70 companies in the sector.[5] The firm has invested in bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, wind, battery, engines, LED, HVAC efficiency and other environmentally friendly technologies.[6][7]

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.[8]

In September 2017, Khosla Ventures had about $5 billion in assets under management.[9]

In October 2021, Khosla Ventures announced that it had raised $1.4 billion in funding to invest in early-to-late stage startups, breaking down to $400 million for seed deals and $1 billion for later-stage companies. The fund has incubated several companies including QuantumScape and NextVivo.[10]

In January 2022, Khosla Ventures raised $557 million in its first opportunity fund.[11]

The firm ranked first in the "Founder's Choice VC" list of more than 200 venture capital firms in 2023.[12]

The firm closed $3.1 billion in new capital across three funds as of November 2023 including $1 billion for later-stage companies, $500 million for seed-stage companies and $1.6 billion for its eighth flagship fund. It was the largest fundraiser by a venture capital firm that year. Khosla Ventures stated that the funding would be used for nuclear fusion, humanoid robots and artificial intelligence to support industries such as healthcare and transportation. In February 2024, Keith Rabois returned to the firm as a managing director.[13][14]

Notable Investments

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Khosla Ventures invests in companies in areas such as AI, climate, sustainability, enterprise, consumer, fintech, digital health, medtech and diagnostics, therapeutics and frontier technology.

Khosla Ventures invested in Doordash in 2013 before the company went public in 2020 with a $72b valuation. The firm also invested in Instacart in 2012 as part of the seed round before going public in 2020 with a $11B market cap. Other consumer investments include Opendoor.[15]

The firm invested in Okta in the Series B in 2011 before going public in 2017 and GitLab in the Series A in 2015 before going public in 2021 with a $15B market cap. Other enterprise investments include Cylance, Rubrik, Nutanix, and Replit.[16][17][18]

Khosla Ventures invested in Block in the Series A round in 2009 before the company went public in 2015.[19] The firm also invested Affirm in the Series A round in 2013 before going public in 2021 with a $24B valuation[20] Other fintech investments include Stripe, Upstart, and Ramp.[21]

Khosla Ventures invested in Commonwealth Fusion in the $115m Series A round in 2019.[22] Khosla was also an early investor in Quantumscape which went public in 2020.[23] Other sustainability investments include Fortera and Verdagy.

The firm invested in Guardant Health in the Series B in 2014 before going public in 2018 and Alivecor in 2012.[24] Other health investments include Headspace, Oscar, and Sword Health.

Khosla Ventures was the first venture capital firm to invest in OpenAI in 2018.[25] The firm also invested in Rocket Lab in the Series A round in 2013 before going public in 2021.[26] Other frontier investments include Glydways, Hermeus, Opentrons, and Varda.

Programs and partnerships

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In February 2021, Khosla Ventures 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.[27]

Through a Khosla-backed SPAC, Nextdoor, trading under the ticker KIND, had its initial public offering in November 2021 with a $4.3 billion valuation. By August 2023 KIND's market cap had fallen to about $810 million.[28] Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co. announced that it would close business in December 2023.[29]

References

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  1. ^ Lacy, Sarah (July 3, 2009). "Vinod Khosla, Risk Junkie". TechCrunch.
  2. ^ "Khosla Ventures Founder Vinod Khosla Joins Slush 2017 - Slush 2017". Slush 2017. 2017-11-28. Retrieved 2018-01-07.
  3. ^ Marshall, Matt (3 March 2009). "Pierre Lamond, the VC who scared the YouTube guys, joins Khosla". VentureBeat. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  4. ^ Khosla Ventures piles up $1 billion for green tech. cnet news, September 1, 2009
  5. ^ "Venture capital firm embraces green technology". NYT.
  6. ^ Venture Firm’s ‘Green’ Funds Top $1 Billion. New York Times, August 31, 2009
  7. ^ Wauters, Robin (May 19, 2011). "Khosla Ventures Is Raising, Like, A Billion Dollars". TechCrunch.
  8. ^ Nordrum, Amy (2015-10-09). "Space Advocate Makes Business Case For Private Company Exploration Of Extraterrestrial Resources". International Business Times. Retrieved 2015-10-10.
  9. ^ Kolodny, Lora (2017-09-07). "Khosla Ventures adds women to investment team — Simmons and Gulati". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
  10. ^ Cheng, Candy. "Khosla Ventures has raised a new $1.4 billion fund to back startup winners like DoorDash, Stripe, and Square". Business Insider. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved November 16, 2021.
  11. ^ Exclusive: Khosla Ventures raises its first opportunities fund
  12. ^ "Founder's Choice VC Leaderboard".
  13. ^ Jin, Berber (14 November 2024). "Early OpenAI Investor Khosla Ventures Closes In on $3 Billion for Venture Funds". WSJ.com.
  14. ^ Konrad, Alex (9 January 2024). "Keith Rabois Makes A Surprise Return To Khosla Ventures, Five Years After Joining Founders Fund". Forbes.com.
  15. ^ Saul, Derek. "Here Are The Big Investor Winners In Instacart's $11 BIllion IPO Debut—And The Losers". Forbes.
  16. ^ New Billionaire: Todd McKinnon's Cloud Security Company Is Booming As More Americans Work From Home
  17. ^ Ringcentral Net Worth 2011-2021
  18. ^ "gitlab-reaches-15-bil-market-cap-as-shares-jump-in-ipo". Forbes.
  19. ^ Taylor, Harriet. "On paper, Khosla's firm could net a massive return on Square IPO". CNBC.
  20. ^ "Affirm Holdings prices U.S. IPO above target range, raises $1.2 billion". Reuters. 12 January 2021.
  21. ^ Khosla Ventures has raised a new $1.4 billion fund to back startup winners like DoorDash, Stripe, and Square
  22. ^ "Commonwealth Fusion Systems Raises $115M in Series A Funding". Finsmes.
  23. ^ Jones, Benji. "Billionaire investor Vinod Khosla shares the 4 most promising sectors he's betting on in the booming climate-tech industry". Business insider.
  24. ^ "Guardant Health Announces $30 Million Series B Financing Led By Khosla Ventures". PRnewswire.
  25. ^ "Vinod Khosla details how much his venture firm had on the line before Sam Altman's reinstatement at OpenAI". Fortune.
  26. ^ Sheetz, Michael. "Khosla Ventures $28 million investment in Rocket Lab is now worth about $1.7 billion". CNBC.
  27. ^ 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.
  28. ^ "Nextdoor Holdings, Inc. (KIND)". finance.yahoo.com.
  29. ^ "Khosla Ventures Acquisition Co. Announces Redemption of Public Shares and Subsequent Dissolution". PR Newswire. 4 December 2023.
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