Venrock was founded in 1969 as a venture capital affiliate of the wealthy and famous Rockefeller family. The firm's philosophy is summed up in a quote, attached to company literature, from the family's venerable patriarch, John D. Rockefeller: "If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success." Venrock has found new paths through big-name companies such as Intel and Apple, and has become established as one of the most respected names in VC. All told, Venrock has invested in over 300 companies which have combined annual revenues of about $96 billion. While the company had historically been aligned only with the Rockefeller family, it began taking money from outside investors (mainly university endowments) in 1997.

Investment strategy: early stage, anywhere

Venrock Associates focuses on seed through second round financing. For first round financing, the firm will supply a minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $4 million. Venrock funds companies according to category rather than region, although most of its funding goes to Silicon Valley. Nevertheless, the company has established a presence in New York's Silicon Alley community. One notable New York Venrock investment, Classified Warehouse (formerly AdOne Classified Network), won attention when it became the sole provider of classified advertising for Lycos. Another Venrock hit is DoubleClick, the Internet ad firm.

Portfolio: full-bodied

With $900 million in investment capital under management, Venrock Associates funds companies primarily in information technology and healthcare. The firm's IT portfolio breaks down into four areas: communications (Banyan, FloWise Networks, NTL.), software (Inference, Metacreations), Internet/intranet (DoubleClick, Classified Warehouse), and components and systems (Apple, Intel, Cognex). Healthcare includes pharmaceuticals (Centocor, ICAgen), medical devices (ArgoMed, Sonic Innovations), diagnostics and instrumentation (Caliper Technologies, PerSeptive Biosystemns), and healthcare services (Theraphysics Corp., MedPartners). Venrock also has an "other" portfolio category that contains Nanogram Corp., Opta Food Ingredients and Symyx Technologies.

Venrock managing partners