Benchmark (venture capital firm)
venture capital firm
Benchmark Capital Advisors LLC (commonly known as Benchmark) is an American venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden. The firm is known for its equal partnership structure and focus on early-stage investing, typically leading the first institutional round of funding while taking a board seat with each company it invests in.
Founding, partner structure
Benchmark was founded in 1995 by five partners: Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden. The firm is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners, where there are no "junior partners" or "senior partners," and there are also no CEO-like position held, differing from other VC firms which are named for their founders and are structured hierarchically. The firm has stated the reason for maintaining this approach is to "force discipline and accountability to focus on what matters" for its founders and limited partners, as their profits are driven by investment performance as opposed to management fees. The collective decision-making structure also means that Benchmark shares responsibility for the performance of the companies the firm invests in, not just the single partner who joins the company's board of directors.
Prior partners with the firm include Bill Gurley (who stepped back from his position after serving with the firm for twenty-one years), Mitch Lasky, and Matt Cohler (who each stepped back from their roles as partners after each spending more than a decade with the firm), and Victor Lazarte.
Investments
The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 million for an 11% stake in Uber, worth $7 billion in 2019 and $9.4 billion in 2023.
Benchmark’s first eight funds, raised and invested between 1995 and 2019, returned more than seven and a half times the money invested, net of fees and carry.
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