Roelof F. Botha (born 19 September 1973
/ref>) is a South African actuary,

venture capitalist 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 company director. Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital and as of 2022 sits on the boards of MongoDB, Evernote,

Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

, Ethos,

Natera Natera, Inc. is a clinical genetic testing company based in Austin, Texas that specializes in non-invasive, cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing technology, with a focus on women’s health, cancer, and organ health. Natera’s proprietary technology ...

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...

, Unity, and Xoom. He also worked with AssureRX, FutureAdvisor,

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

, Mixpanel and

Mu Sigma Mu Sigma is an American decision sciences firm that primarily offers data analytics services. The firm's name is derived from the statistical terms " Mu (μ)" and "Sigma (σ)" which symbolize the mean and the standard deviation, respectively, o ...

. He previously sat on the board of directors of Meebo and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

before they were each acquired by

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, Weebly before they were acquired by

, and Tumblr before they were acquired by

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

. He previously sat on the boards of Eventbrite, Jawbone,

Mahalo "Mahalo" is a Hawaiian word meaning thanks, gratitude, admiration, praise, esteem, regards, or respects. According to the Pukui and Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, it is derived from the Proto-Polynesian ''*masalo.'' Some sources support that the ...

, Nimbula, Tokbox, and

Whisper Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords are abducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains t ...

. On ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' Midas List, an annual ranking of venture capital professionals, he ranked 22nd in 2008, 9th in 2021, and 36th in 2022.

Education and career

Botha was born in

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

, South Africa, and at the age of six he moved to

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

with his parents. He was raised in Hout Bay, a suburb of Cape Town, and attended

Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck Hoërskool Jan van Riebieck is a public Afrikaans medium co-educational high school situated in Gardens in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was founded in 1926 by J.J. Jordaan. Overview The school is situated at t ...

. Botha earned a BSc in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, graduating in 1996. He worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

from 1996 through 1998. He then moved to the United States, where he received an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. In 2000, prior to his graduation from Stanford, Botha became director of corporate development for

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

. He moved on to vice-president of finance and was named CFO in September 2001. PayPal went public in February 2002, and was purchased by

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

in October 2002. Meg Whitman offered Botha the opportunity to stay on as CFO post-acquisition, but he left to join Sequoia Capital in January 2003. At Sequoia, Botha oversaw the firm's investment in

, and

, among others. He also helped to plan the acquisition of Xoom by

. In 2017, Botha took over lead responsibility for Sequoia's US operations from

Jim Goetz Jim Goetz is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur who is a partner with Sequoia Capital. Goetz is known for his focus on mobile and enterprise startups, including successful investments in AdMob, WhatsApp, Chartboost and GitHub. In 2017, ...

. In April 2022, Sequoia announced that, starting in July 2022, Botha would replace Doug Leone as Senior Steward of Sequoia's global brand and operations. Botha has led or co-led Sequoia's investments in several early and growth stage companies. As of 2022, his active investments include Ethos, Evernote
GenEditLandismmhmmPendulumSkiffTemporal Technologies
an
The Org

Family

Botha's father, also named Roelof, is an economist.Dr. Roelof Botha
/ref> His uncle was the rock musician Piet Botha. His grandfather was Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha, a South African politician who served as the country's last foreign minister under the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

government, and the first minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs under

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the ...

References

External links

Roelof Botha Bio
Sequoia. {{DEFAULTSORT:Botha, Roelof 1973 births Living people Actuaries Afrikaner people Alumni of Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck PayPal people People from Pretoria South African businesspeople South African investors South African people of German descent South African venture capitalists Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni University of Cape Town alumni