Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a typ ...

investment firm focusing on later-stage

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

and growth equity investments. IVP is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1980.

History

While Reid W. Dennis was an analyst at the

Fireman's Fund Insurance Company Fireman's Fund Insurance Company was an insurance company based in Petaluma, California which provided personal and commercial property and casualty insurance products in the United States. The company was a principal U.S. subsidiary of Allianz, ...

starting in 1952, he started an informal network of screened individual investors (now called angel investors). In 1974, Dennis founded Institutional Venture Associates (IVA), funded by six institutions such as

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

. Burton J. McMurtry and

David Marquardt David F. Marquardt (born February 1, 1949) was a co-founder of venture capital firm August Capital in 1995. He has served on more than 35 boards of directors during his 40-year venture capital career including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems (acqui ...

, who had been involved with IVA, left and founded Technology Venture Investors, the first investor in

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

. These were some of the first

firms located on

Sand Hill Road Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital companies. The road h ...

near Stanford University, within

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Count ...

. With his personal wealth and that of other partners, Dennis founded Institutional Venture Partners in 1980. The first IVP fund had $22 million. In a field that was generally male-dominated, Ruthann Quindlen became a rare female general partner in 1994. After the burst of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Comp ...

in 1999, partners from IVP combined with

Brentwood Venture Capital Brentwood Associates is a private equity firm in the US with groups focusing on leveraged buyout. The firm, which is based in Los Angeles, was founded in 1972. Their most recent fund was a $1.15bn fund raised in 2017. The venture capital gro ...

formed

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 ...

, which would specialize in later-stage digital media and Internet companies, and Palladium Venture Capital to focus on health science investments. IVP specializes in venture growth investments, industry rollups, founder liquidity transactions, and select public market investments. It only makes a small number (about 12 to 15) relatively large investments per year. Its fourteenth fund raised about $1 billion in June 2012. Its fifteenth fund raised $1.4 billion in April 2015. Its sixteenth fund raised $1.5 billion in September 2017.

Industry recognitions

In 2014, AlwaysOn named IVP in its Top 25 VC Firms List. In 2015, GrowthCap named IVP #1 on their Top 25 Growth Equity Firms List. Entrepreneur Magazine named IVP on their VC 100 List. IVP ranked #2 as the Top VC in Mobile by App Portfolio Downloads by Sensor Tower In addition, IVP was listed as one of the Most Active Bay Area VC Firms Ranked by Number of Deals in 2015 by San Francisco Business Times. In 2016, PitchBookPitchbook Press Release (June 21, 2016)
/ref> ranked IVP #2 as The Most Active VC Investor in the U.S.- based Tech Companies That Have Completed an IPO Since the Beginning of 2011. CB Insights ranked IVP #3 among top investors that are consistently in the top tech exits.

References

External links

* {{venture capital firms Venture capital firms of the United States Financial services companies established in 1980