This year, has not been the best for storied venture capital frm Kleiner Perkins Caufeld & Byers, which has faced a contested sex discrimination suit from one of its partners, Ellen Pao.
Simultaneously three of its highest-profle recent investments that have come to the public markets – late-stage investments in US-based social network Facebook and US-based daily deals company Groupon as well as a late-stage follow-on in gaming company Zynga – have not fared as well as hoped.
For an interesting analysis of these deals, see an August piece by Business Insider’s Henry Blodget.
Yet despite sometimes making headlines for reasons other than the blockbuster investment successes of yesteryear, including US-based search engines Netscape and Google, the Kleiner Perkins halo continues to shine strongly for corporates partnering venture frms.
The firm was the most frequent partner of corporates this year, investing in 48 companies with corporate backing, and was involved in eight companies involving exits – see table.
The firm’s most regular corporate partner was Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of one of its most famous investment successes – it was in the syndicate of seven portfolio companies that raised money or made an acquisition in partnership with Kleiner Perkins.
These investments were mobile app performance monitoring company Crittercism, music hub DJZ, file-sharing company Egnyte, molecular information company Foundation Medicine, payday loan company LendUp, network security company Shape Security and crowdfunding company Upstart.
Google also supported Zynga, a Kleiner Perkins-backed company that raised $515m in a secondary sale this year.
Kleiner Perkins’ next most active corporate partner is Bright Capital, a venture frm set up by Russia-based information technology company Ru-Com.
They linked in five deals this year – biomass company Agrivida, cardiovascular diagnostics company CardioDx, materials innovation company Siluria Technologies, low-energy building materials company Solidia and semiconductor company SuVolta.
Valery Krivenko, managing partner at Bright Capital, explained how his firm had been able to secure numerous co-investments with Kleiner Perkins.
He said: “Bright Capital has cash to invest, has done investing quite dynamically, is an adequate team with reasonably fun folks to deal and mix with. However I think a very important, if not the most important factor, is that we can build a bridge for the Kleiner portfolio companies we co-invest in with this part of the world – the fomer Soviet Union”.
He added: “We found a good joint venture partner for Siluria Technologies here, and they are already discussing the term sheet. A month ago we arranged the signing of a memorandum of understanding with state development bank VEB for project fnancing of up to $1.5bn for Siluria projects in Russia.”
Kleiner Perkins’ third most active corporate syndicate partner was Intel, including deals by corporate venturing unit Intel Capital. Their three investments involved CardioDx, game developer Digital Chocolate, and developer of power products for consumer electronics Lilliputian.
The biggest investment involving a company with corporate venturing backing was the $420m round raised by coal conversion company GreatPoint Energy from auto parts maker China Wanxiang Holdings. Other corporates in GreatPoint’s syndicate were chemical company Dow Chemical, power company AES Corporation and energy company Suncor Energy.
The largest exit, besides the Zynga secondary sale, involving corporates and Kleiner Perkins was the $141m LifeLock initial public offering, where backers also included security software company Symantec and US-based bank Goldman Sachs. Other corporate partners have found partnering Kleiner Perkins on a deal does not guarantee success.
A well-publicised investment that disappointed was solar company MiaSolé, which was sold for $30m, after raising about $500m of fnancing. Corporate partners on this deal included Luxembourg headquartered steel business Arcelor Mittal and Japan-based power distribution equipment company Nippon Kouatsu Electric.
Yet if successful venture investing is in part dependent on having a web of trusted contacts, for corporates it looks like no one is as big as Kleiner Perkins.
As a firm with roots going back to the early days of venture capital, having being set up in 1972, only a brave man would bet against it being a key presence at Silicon Valley’s top table for many years to come.