Draper Fisher Jurvetson ( DFJ ) is an American venture capital firm . In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures . DFJ Growth continues to be managed by co-founder John Fisher and co-founders Mark Bailey, Randy Glein, and Barry Schuler .
24-673: DFJ was founded in 1985 by Tim Draper . John Fisher became a partner in 1991 and Steve Jurvetson joined in 1994. In 2013, founding partner Draper announced his departure from future DFJ Venture funds, with John Fisher continuing in his role with DFJ Growth. Draper announced he will continue investing out of an early stage venture fund Draper Associates V and assisting his son in running an incubator. In November 2017, Jurvetson stepped down from his position at DFJ after allegations of sexual harassment . DFJ Growth's investments include Anaplan , Coinbase , Cylance , Ring , Sisense , SpaceX , Tesla , Twitter , Unity , and Yammer . DFJ Growth
48-513: A US Marshals Service auction of seized bitcoins from the Silk Road website. Draper is a proponent of bitcoin and decentralization. Draper was one of the first investors in Theranos . Draper is the third in a familial line of venture capitalists and government officials. He is the son of Phyllis (Culbertson) and William Henry Draper III and the younger brother of actress Polly Draper . His father
72-545: A crash course in entrepreneurship. The university's residential program is based in San Mateo, California , and the curricula are designed by Draper. Steve Jurvetson Stephen T. Jurvetson (born March 1, 1967) is an American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist . Formerly a partner of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) , he was an early investor in Hotmail , Memphis Meats , Mythic and Nervana Systems . He
96-510: A marketing engineer. Draper made national headlines as a student when he created the campus board game "Stanford - The Game" alongside Heidi Roizen , who was a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business at the time. In 1985, Draper left the investment bank Alex. Brown & Sons to start his own venture capital firm. Former colleague John H.N. Fisher became a partner in 1991, and business student Steve Jurvetson became
120-563: A wide range of companies in the software, networking, and semiconductor industries. He first joined DFJ after his second year of business school, and became a partner after proving his talent on several investments. At DFJ, Jurvetson was involved in lucrative investments with Hotmail , the Chinese company Baidu, Skype, Interwoven, Kana, Tradex , and Cyras. Cyras in particular was acquired for US$ 8 billion. Less favorably, DFJ and Jurvetson were an early financial backer of Elizabeth Holmes and
144-572: A young age, including tennis, baseball and basketball. At a height of 193.0 cm (6 ft 4 in), Draper continues to play basketball several times a week with a regular group of players including his son, Adam Draper. Three of Draper's children also have venture funds. Adam Draper is the managing director of Boost VC. Jesse Draper is the managing director of Halogen VC, and Billy Draper is the managing director of Path Ventures. Draper has spoken out for free markets and entrepreneurship globally, and against Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, stating that they limit
168-422: Is currently a board member of SpaceX among others. He later co-founded the firm Future Ventures with Maryanna Saenko, who worked with him at DFJ. Jurvetson was named to Forbes ' "Midas List" of Tech's Top Investors in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016. He was a board member of Synthetic Genomics , Planet Labs , Nervana Systems (acquired by Intel ), Flux, D-Wave , SpaceX , and Tesla . Jurvetson
192-585: Is headquartered in Menlo Park, California , and is currently investing DFJ Growth’s fourth fund of nearly $ 1 Billion which closed in 2021. DFJ Growth partner Randy Glein has been named to the Forbes Midas List several times, most recently in 2019. He was also named one of the world’s top venture capitalists in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 by the New York Times/CB Insights. Barry Schuler was named to
216-676: Is the founder of Draper & Johnson Investment Company and former chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States . His grandfather, William Henry Draper Jr. , founded Draper, Gaither and Anderson in 1958 and served as the first ambassador to NATO . Draper attended Phillips Academy Andover before matriculating to Stanford University , where he graduated with a BS in electrical engineering in 1980. He later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984. While at Stanford, Draper interned at Hewlett-Packard as
240-777: The Silk Road by the US Marshals service and auctioned to the public. On September 23, 2014, Draper told Fox Business that he predicted that one bitcoin would reach $ 10,000 "in three years"; on January 27, 2015, Draper wagered about $ 400,000 (which is 2000 bitcoins with $ 200 price) that the bitcoin will rebound from a recent plunge. The price of a bitcoin crossed $ 10,000 (~$ 12,227 in 2023) on November 29, 2017. On April 21, 2018, Draper predicted during an Intelligence Squared debate that "In five years you are going to try to go buy coffee with fiat currency and they are going to laugh at you because you're not using crypto." In December 2019, he predicted that bitcoin would reach US$ 250,000 by
264-860: The Forbes Midas List in 2022 and 2023. The DFJ Network was renamed the Draper Venture Network in 2015 and is operated by Tim Draper . Tim Draper Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), Draper University , Draper Venture Network, and Draper Associates. Since 2019, he is a partner in Draper Goren Holm. His most prominent investments include Baidu , Hotmail , Skype , Tesla , SpaceX , AngelList , SolarCity , Ring , Twitter , DocuSign , Coinbase , Robinhood , Ancestry.com , Twitch , Cruise Automation , PrettyLitter and Focus Media . In July 2014, Draper received wide coverage for his purchase at
SECTION 10
#1732891544634288-540: The day before ballots were sent to print, the California Supreme Court blocked the measure from appearing on the November 2018 ballot. Draper stated that he met with—and donated to—both presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in "roughly equal amounts." He also stated that he is "endorsing both candidates." In 2013, Draper launched Draper University of Heroes, an educational program that offers
312-530: The disgraced blood-testing firm Theranos . Also in 2016, President Barack Obama appointed Jurvetson as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship . On November 13, 2017, Jurvetson stepped down from his role at DFJ Venture Capital in addition to taking leave from the boards of SpaceX and Tesla following an internal DFJ investigation into allegations of sexual harassment. While there were allegations of inappropriate behavior, DFJ did not receive an official complaint of harassment or misconduct. While
336-478: The end of 2022. After funding Twitch , which was sold to Amazon for $ 1 billion, Kyle Vogt , a founder of Twitch, took Draper for a ride in the Cruise Automation self-driving car. After nearly crashing, Draper funded Cruise. Cruise went on to be sold to General Motors for $ 1 billion as well. Draper was one of the first investors in the blood testing startup Theranos , whose founder Elizabeth Holmes
360-430: The findings of the investigation were not made public, anonymous sources alleged that the investigation "uncovered behaviors by Jurvetson that were unacceptable related to a negative tone toward women entrepreneurs." Jurvetson stated that stepping down from his role was unrelated to the allegations, writing "I am leaving DFJ to focus on personal matters" in a statement posted to Twitter . Recode reported that Jurvetson
384-509: The term "viral marketing", though the neologism itself is documented as early as a 1989 edition of PC User . Draper was the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist to invest in China through the global fund DFJ ePlanet. In 2001, Draper negotiated with CEO Robin Li of Baidu to buy 28% of the company on behalf of ePlanet for US$ 9 million (~$ 14.8 million in 2023). Draper's father, Bill Draper,
408-481: The third partner in the firm in 1994. Draper invested in Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, who presented him with their company, Hotmail. While numerous publications intimate that he "invented viral marketing " in 1996, this major acclaim was his early support for the founders, due to his idea of automatically attaching a brief advertising message to the bottom of outgoing Hotmail emails. Draper and Jurvetson then coined
432-450: The viability of taking companies public. In 2000, Draper spent $ 20 million (~$ 33.6 million in 2023) on a failed measure to support school vouchers . In early 2014, Draper filed a petition which was accepted by California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen to begin collecting signatures to divide California into six smaller states , arguing that California is "increasingly ungovernable" as one state. However, on September 12, 2014, it
456-522: Was a member of the Tesla board of directors from 2006 to December 2020. Jurvetson's father Tõnu Jürvetson fled Estonia through Germany just before Soviet re-occupation in 1944 . Tõnu was married to another Estonian immigrant, Tiiu Tia Jürvetson. Even though within the family, the Estonian language was used, Steve never learned it and his parents used it as a secret language between themselves. Steve Jurvetson
480-752: Was an early investor in Skype , and DFJ backed Skype in 2004. The company owned 10% of Skype in 2005 when it was sold to eBay for US$ 4.1 billion (~$ 6.15 billion in 2023). Draper and Niklas Zennström appeared in the first Skype video together in 2007 at Stanford University. In 2006, Draper through DFJ was an investor in the Series C venture round of Tesla . In 2007, Draper again invested in Tesla's Series D venture round through Draper Associates. On June 27, 2014, Draper paid about US$ 19 million (~$ 24.1 million in 2023) for nearly 30,000 bitcoins which had been seized from
504-407: Was announced the plan fell short of the required number of valid signatures to land it on the 2016 ballot. In April 2018 Draper announced collection of "about 600,000" signatures for a new petition to divide California , this time into three new states. In June 2018, the petition collected a sufficient number of signatures to qualify as an initiative in the 2018 general election. On July 18, 2018,
SECTION 20
#1732891544634528-684: Was later charged by the SEC with committing massive fraud. In 2018, after the SEC had already charged Holmes, Draper continued to defend her, saying that she had been "bullied into submission". Draper's recent investments include Robinhood (company) , Coinbase , eShares , Tezos , DefiMoneyMarket, and OpenGov . Draper's recent investments are centered around companies who use artificial intelligence , bitcoin, blockchain , smart contracts , and computational genomics to apply to industries like finance, health care, and government. Draper played several sports from
552-458: Was the first US-born Estonian to become an e-resident of Estonia . Jurvetson grew up in Dallas , where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas in 1985. At Stanford University , Jurvetson finished his degree in electrical engineering in 2.5 years and graduated No. 1 in his class. He then earned an M.S. in electrical engineering and an M.B.A., also from Stanford. His first job out of Stanford
576-548: Was working as an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard (HP). After two years at HP, he moved on as a product marketer at Apple and then NeXT Software . Jurvetson was named to the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 in 1999 to "recognize young entrepreneurs who can deliver", including making the first investment in Hotmail . As a consultant with Bain & Company , Jurvetson developed marketing, sales, engineering and business strategies for
#633366