Rank last year: 16
John Ball founded Steamboat Ventures in 2000 after initially working at pioneering venture capital firm Burr Egan Deleage in the 1980s.
This year he secured a big win with the initial public offering of camera company GoPro, which raised $427m in what the Wall Street Journal said was likely to be the biggest consumer electronics IPO on record.
John Ball, managing partner of Steamboat Ventures, said of the GoPro IPO: “These are the days VCs live for. It is hugely rewarding to see the outcome for everyone who was involved.”
Ball added: “From Steamboat’s perspective the GoPro investment was a ‘soup to nuts’ fit with our investment strategy, leveraging Steamboat’s US-China cross-border capabilities, leading to a great working relationship between GoPro and Disney’s ESPN, and providing a very attractive financial return.”
The deal marks a significant return for Steamboat, which recently raised money from other limited partners to come in alongside Disney, which had previously been the firm’s sole fund backer. Ball said: “Steamboat does not disclose the specifics of its individual investments, but let’s just say that everybody who invested in GoPro is very happy. For Steamboat, the investment will more than return our entire Fund V, which we closed early at $85m partly because of the significant value appreciation of the existing portfolio and due to a GoPro distribution in 2012.”
He later moved on to head corporate development and mergers and acquisitions at US-listed media group Disney, after working for four years as director of mergers and acquisitions at civil engineering company URS Corporation, formerly Dames & Moore.
With Steamboat being set up as Disney’s corporate venturing affiliate in 2000 at the tail-end of thetechnology, media and telecoms bubble, Ball resisted making an investment for 18 months until prices had rationalised and a new wave of promising new media companies was beginning to emerge.
Ball is a Tufts and Harvard Business School alumnus.