Satish Dharmaraj is an American entrepreneur and

venture capitalist Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

, who currently serves as a general partner with

Redpoint Ventures Redpoint Ventures is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in seed, early and growth-stage companies. History The firm was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angel ...

. In 2024, he was placed #5 on the Forbes Midas List of top 100 Venture Capital investors. Prior to Redpoint Ventures, Satish Dharmaraj founded

Zimbra Zimbra Collaboration, formerly known as the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) before 2019, is a collaborative software suite that includes an email server and a web client. Zimbra was initially developed by LiquidSys, which changed their name ...

, which he then sold to

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

for $350 million, in 2007.

Education and career

Satish Dharmaraj has the

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

and

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degrees in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and "an executive management degree from the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

." He also holds the

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a college graduate majoring in an engineering discipline at a higher education institution. In the United Kingdom, a Ba ...

degree in

Electronics and Communication Engineering Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow ...

from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. Dharmaraj "managed the messaging business at Openwave Systems" (in addition to holding positions at

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and OneBox) and consequently, in 2003, became the founder and chief executive officer of

, which he sold to

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

for US$350 million in 2007. According to Dharmaraj, his success at Zimbra was due to pioneering a web browser that focused on

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

. While at Yahoo, Dharmaraj "helped Yahoo make its email system open to third party applications." After stepping down from Yahoo in 2009, Dharmaraj became a partner for

, where he currently serves. Dharmaraj was Redpoint's first entrepreneur partner and ''

PandoDaily PandoDaily, or simply Pando, was a web publication offering technology news, analysis, and commentary, with a focus on Silicon Valley and startup companies. History PandoDaily was started by former TechCrunch writer Sarah Lacy on January 16, 201 ...

'' reported that "Redpoint’s experience with Dharmaraj went well, spurring the firm’s current addition of Ryan Sarver from

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Investments and acquisitions

Satish Dharmaraj led investments in

Snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

Infer Inferences are steps in logical reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinctio ...

Sonos Sonos, Inc. is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Santa Barbara, California. The company was founded in 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai. Sonos has partnered with over 100 companies th ...

Coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

, Gogobot,

Peel Peel or Peeling may refer to: Places Australia * Peel (Western Australia) * Peel, New South Wales * Peel River (New South Wales) Canada * Peel Parish, New Brunswick * Peel, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community in Peel Parish * Pee ...

Pure Storage Pure Storage, Inc. is an American publicly traded technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States. It develops all-flash data storage hardware and software products. Pure Storage was founded in 2009 and developed its ...

, MapR, and Big Switch. In 2014, Acompli, which was funded by Dharmaraj's

, was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and this acquisition is worth over US$200 million.

Pulse In medicine, the pulse refers to the rhythmic pulsations (expansion and contraction) of an artery in response to the cardiac cycle (heartbeat). The pulse may be felt ( palpated) in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surfac ...

, which Dharmaraj funded, was bought out by

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

for approximately US$90 million. Satish Dharmaraj was an angel investor for

Posterous Posterous was a simple blogging platform started in May 2008. It supported integrated and automatic posting to other social media tools such as Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, a built-in Google Analytics package, and custom themes. It was based in ...

, which was sold to

in 2012. In the same year, StorSimple, a product of Dharmaraj, was acquired by

. In 2011, Cloud.com, which was built up by Satish Dharmaraj, was acquired by

Citrix Systems Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. ...

. In 2017, Trip.com (formerly Gogobot) was acquired by CTrip. In 2012, Dharmaraj's Redpoint Ventures helped raise US$60 million for

Zendesk Zendesk, Inc. is an American company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007 and is headquartered in San Fr ...

's initial public offering (

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

Works

Articles

Articles written by Dharmaraj include: *
Staying in Pitch Mode
- ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

Video interviews

*
Entrepreneur-Turned-VC Satish Dharmaraj Speaks!
- ''The Wall Street Journal'' *
Satish Dharmaraj on VC in Third Wold Markets
- ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

'' *
Satish Dharmaraj on Citrixs Acquisition of Cloud
- ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' *
Satish Dharmaraj on Businesses in Asia and Local Search’s Future
- ''TechCrunch'' *
TC50 2009 Round 1 Judging Session
- ''TechCrunch'' *
TC50 2009 Round 2 Judging Session
- ''TechCrunch''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dharmaraj, Satish American people of Tamil descent American people of Indian Tamil descent American people of Indian descent American technology company founders Harvard Business School alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Midas List Indian emigrants to the United States Tamil people