Venrock (

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of Venture and Rockefeller) is an American

venture capital firm 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 ...

formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the

Rockefeller family The Rockefeller family ( ) is an American Industrial sector, industrial, political, and List of banking families, banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the History of the petroleum industry in th ...

that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

History

Venture capitalist Laurance S. Rockefeller (1910–2004) was the fourth of the six children of John D. Rockefeller Jr. In January 1946 he formed Rockefeller Brothers, Inc., one of the first postwar venture-capital operations, starting with a capitalization of $1.5 million. There were eight partners in all, the five brothers and their sister, Abby, and two non-family members, Harper Woodward and MIT scientist Ted Walkowicz. In 1969, the firm became known as Venrock. Laurance S. Rockefeller became an investor in enterprises based on science and technology. His investment interests included the fields of aviation,

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

, electronics, high temperature physics,

composite material A composite or composite material (also composition material) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a ...

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word ''laser'' originated as an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radi ...

data processing Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of ''information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an o ...

, thermionics, and

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

. Venrock closed its seventh fund in July 2014 with 8 partners and its eighth fund in January 2017 with 15 partners, each fund totalling $450 million.

Investments

Venrock invested more than $2.5 billion in more than 440 companies, resulting in 125

initial public offering 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 investm ...

s. Venrock focuses its investments on early-stage and start-up companies in information technology, healthcare and emerging technologies. These include:

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, AppNexus, Astranis, StrataCom, Check Point Software, Dapper Labs,

DoubleClick DoubleClick Inc. was an American advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primaril ...

, 3Com Corporation,

Mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

, PGP, Itek, Digex, Interos, Shape Security, Phoenix, Second Rotation (gazelle), RedSeal,

CTERA Networks CTERA Networks is a privately held enterprise software company headquartered in New York and Israel. The company has regional offices in the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, and Australia.

, and Juno Therapeutics. It also has a significant venture in the nascent

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

field, with early funding of

Nanosys Nanosys is a nanotechnology company located in Milpitas, California, Milpitas, California and founded in 2001. The company develops and manufactures quantum dot materials for display products. History On July 28, 2021, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg ...

and the nanotech division of Du Pont. Others include BioTime. In the healthcare sector with partners such as Bryan Roberts, Venrock has invested in athenahealth, Grand Rounds, HealthSouth Corporation, MedPartners, Inc., Castlight Health, Caliper Technologies Corporation, Centocor, Geron,

senolytic A senolytic (from the words ''senescence'' and ''-lytic'', "destroying") is among a class of small molecules under basic research to determine if they can selectively induce death of senescent cells and improve health in humans. A goal of this r ...

startup UNITY Biotechnology, Genetics Institute, Idec Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Illumina, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Sirna Therapeutics, and Sugen.

References

External links

Company Website
{{Private equity and venture capital Financial services companies established in 1969 Companies based in Menlo Park, California Rockefeller family Venture capital firms of the United States

History

Investments

See also

References

Further reading

External links