Forbes 2015 Midas List
The Top 10 Venture Investors And Firms Of 2015
When it comes to the top venture investor by returns, no one’s topping Jim Goetz. But as the private valuations of ride-sharing service Uber and Chinese electronics maker Xiaomi soar above $40 billion and exits from Alibaba’s record-setting public offering to Amazon’s billion-dollar deal for streaming site Twitch begin to pile up, the ranks of the 2015 Midas List are changing fast.
Sequoia Capital partner Goetz stays at #1 due to WhatsApp, the mobile messaging company acquired by Facebook in Oct. for $22 billion. The sole investor in WhatsApp, Goetz struck gold, returning more than $3 billion to Sequoia, more than 6x its entire $434 million 2010 fund. Add that to a string of IPOs like HubSpot, which went public in 2014, Nimble Storage and Barracuda Networks in 2013 and the 2012 IPOs of Ruckus Wireless and Palo Alto Networks, in which Sequoia’s held its position in the now $11 billion-plus market cap company. Goetz is on a historic hot streak that embodies the Midas touch.
Sequoia stalwart Doug Leone stays at #6 joined by perennial Paul Madera, the growth-stage expert from Meritech Capital Partners, at #6 and #7. But alongside Gurley, the back of the top 10 sees some major change. At #8 is newly-minted billionaire Neil Shen, the managing partner at Sequoia Capital China and former Ctrip.com cofounder (the “Expedia of China”) who managed the firms investments in Alibaba, Vipshop (IPO 2012) and Qihoo 360 (IPO 2011) among others.
Full List
- Jim Goetz, Sequoia Capital
- Peter Fenton, Benchmark
- Chris Sacca, Lowercase Capital
- Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital
- Steve Anderson, Baseline Ventures
- Douglas Leone, Sequoia Capital
- Paul Madera, Meritech Capital Partners
- Neil Shen, Sequoia Capital
- Bill Gurley, Benchmark
- Jenny Lee, GGV Capital
- Scott Sandell, New Enterprise Associates
- Peter Thiel, Founders Fund
- Jim Breyer, Breyer Capital
- Mike Maples, Jr., Floodgate
- Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital
- Aneel Bhusri, Workday
- Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
- Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz
- Yuri Milner, Digital Sky Technologies
- Roelof Botha, Sequoia Capital
- Steven Ji, Sequoia Capital
- Rebecca Lynn, Canvas Venture Fund
- Salil Deshpande, Bain Capital Ventures
- Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz
- Promod Haque, Norwest Venture Partners
- David Sze, Greylock Partners
- Jeremy Levine, Bessemer Venture Partners
- Alfred Lin, Sequoia Capital
- John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Todd Chaffee, Institutional Venture Partners
- Hurst Lin, DCM
- Danny Rimer, Index Ventures
- Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn
- Jixun Foo, GGV Capital
- Asheem Chandna, Greylock Partners
- Sameer Gandhi, Accel Partners
- Gaurav Garg, Wing Venture Partners
- Aydin Senkut, Felicis Ventures
- Ron Conway, SV Angel
- Harry Weller, New Enterprise Associates
- Navin Chaddha, Mayfield Fund
- Hans Tung, GGV Capital
- Brian Singerman, Founders Fund
- Rob Hayes, First Round Capital
- Lee Fixel, Tiger Global Management
- Xiaojun Li, IDG Capital Partners
- Scott Shleifer, Tiger Global Management
- Ann Lamont, Oak Investment Partners
- David Chao, DCM
- Ryan Sweeney, Accel Partners
- Michael Goguen, Sequoia Capital
- Jonathan Silverstein, OrbiMed
- Bryan Roberts, Venrock
- Joel Cutler, General Catalyst Partners
- Charles Moldow, Foundation Capital
- Deven Parekh, Insight Venture Partners
- Neeraj Agrawal, Battery Ventures
- Bijan Sabet, Spark Capital
- Randy Glein, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
- Kui Zhou, Sequoia Capital
- Kevin Efrusy, Accel Partners
- Matt Cohler, Benchmark
- Ken Howery, Founders Fund
- Klaus Hommels, Lakestar
- Rich Wong, Accel Partners
- Ping Li, Accel Partners
- David Weiden, Khosla Ventures
- Anton Levy, General Atlantic
- Mitch Lasky, Benchmark
- Sandy Miller, Institutional Venture Partners
- George Zachary, Charles River Ventures
- David Cowan, Bessemer Venture Partners
- Richard Liu, Morningside Ventures
- George Bischof, Meritech Capital Partners
- Rob Ward, Meritech Capital Partners
- Josh Stein, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
- Dennis Phelps, Institutional Venture Partners
- Bruce Golden, Accel Partners
- Jim Tananbaum, Foresite Capital
- Jeff Jordan, Andreessen Horowitz
- Shervin Pishevar, Sherpa Ventures
- Bryan Schreier, Sequoia Capital
- David Lee, SV Angel
- Izhar Armony, Charles River Ventures
- Venky Ganesan, Menlo Ventures
- Suyang Zhang, IDG Capital Partners
- Andrew Braccia, Accel Partners
- Carl Gordon, OrbiMed
- Satish Dharmaraj, Redpoint Ventures
- Beth Seidenberg, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Shawn Carolan, Menlo Ventures
- Peter Wagner, Wing Venture Partners
- Mamoon Hamid, The Social+Capital Partnership
- Mike Volpi, Index Ventures
- Ben Nye, Bain Capital Ventures
- Gordon Ritter, Emergence Capital Partners
- Jeff Crowe, Norwest Venture Partners
- Ted Schlein, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Michael Dearing, Harrison Metal
