Venture Capital Winners of 2011
This article is for subscribers only.
Did someone say economic slump? Not in Silicon Valley. The initial public offerings of LinkedIn and Groupon brought billion-dollar paydays* to venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, and Greylock Partners, while Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is expected to profit handsomely from Zynga’s IPO on Dec. 16.
For venture firms that missed out on those highfliers, plenty of money was made on vacation-rental site HomeAway, which helped Redpoint Ventures crack the year’s top 10. Khosla Ventures was the only investor to make a splash unrelated to the Web with its majority ownership of KiOR, a biofuel maker that is valued at over $1 billion even though the company has yet to generate a penny of revenue.