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History: gilded roots While some VC firms take pride in a twenty or thirty year history, Bessemer Venture Parnters traces its roots all the way back to 1911, when an individual named Henry Phipp used his proceeds from the sale of Carnegie Steel to create what would eventually become Bessemer Securities Corporation. In 1970, Bessemer Venture Partners was founded, with Bessemer Securities as its sole limited partner. Investment Strategy: flexibility Bessemer Venture Partners professes to "typically participate in early-stage financings and later-stage financings where venture capital has not previously been raised." General partner David Cowan has made it clear, however, that the firm is "not religious" about investing in early-stage startups. A typical Bessemer investment is usually as high as $10 million, but according to the company, Bessemer will also provide seed money (as little at $100,000) to "promising young startups." Bessemer is one of the largest venture capital funds in the United States, and size affords the firm some flexibility. According to the company, they prefer to focus investments within the "targeted industries," but are able to "look outside [the] core focus for new and exciting opportunities." Portfolio: tech, health, and the others Bessemer's investments are divided into four categories: communications, e-commerce, healthcare and optics. Bessemer's communications investments include communications software companies (such as Metratech and InformationView), Internet service providers (such as Mindspring and Verio), communications processor companies (such as C-Port) and companies involved with wireless networking (such as Airtech). Within e-commerce, Bessemer portfolio companies include Flycast, eSteel and Hotjobs. Healthcare investments include companies that provide services to consumers (such as BabyCenter and MotherNature.com) as well as companies with a business focus (such as Allscripts and SciQuest.com). Within the category of Optics, Bessemer includes investments in optical chip and semiconductor companies such as Lightwave Microsystems and Lightlogic. Partners: a sense of humor Bessemer employs 16 professionals in three offices, including 10 partners. The firm's partners have recently displayed a remarkable sense of humor regarding their imperfect investment practices. An "anti-portfolio" section on Bessemer's web site lists investment opportunities the Bessemer partners passed on, and now wish they hadn't. The list includes eBay, Federal Express, Intuit, USWeb and several other blockbuster companies. An introduction to the anti-portfolio explains: "Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest venture capital firm, carrying on an unbroken practice of venture capital investing that stretches back to 1911. This long and storied history has afforded our firm an unparalleled number of opportunities to completely screw up." With successful investments in companies such eToys, Flycast, Keynote and Tumbleweed (all valued in the billions), Bessemer partners can afford a sense of humor.
AREAS OF INVESTMENT; Communications; E-Commerce; Healthcare; Optics PORTFOLIO INCLUDES; BabyCenter; BlueNile.com; C-Port; EXP.com; Metratech; Mindspring; Ridgeway Systems; SciQuest.com; Sonus Networks ; Tumbleweed More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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