Kleiner Perkins, celebrating its 50th year of venture investing, on Tuesday announced it raised $1.8 billion in new funds and named a pair of new partners.
The $1 billion KP SelectII fund and $800 million KP20 early stage fund are the fourth and fifth raised since the Menlo Park firm reshuffled its investors and refocused on early stage investing in 2019. It's been an attempt to regain the success Kleiner had when it backed the likes of Genentech in the 1970s, Electronic Arts in the 1980s, and Google and Amazon in the 1990s.
Among Kleiner's portfolio companies that exited via IPOs last year are Robinhood Markets Inc. (Nasdaq:HOOD), Coursera Inc. (NYSE:COUR), Duolingo Inc. (Nasdaq:DUOL) and LegalZoom.com Inc. (Nasdaq:LZ).
"As venture capital continues to evolve and operate at a scale and magnitude greater than it ever has, our focus is the same today as it was when the firm was founded," the firm said about its new funds and partners in an email to the Business Journal. "Venture is a non-scalable, boutique craft. It requires incredibly dedicated practitioners with diverse and complementary backgrounds that span technology, operating and investing."
The two partners Kleiner has added to its team are:
- Annie Case, a former global strategy manager at Uber Technologies Inc. who joined the firm as a principal in 2018, will focus on consumer marketplaces and digital technology. She is on the boards of a pair of San Francisco companies — fitness startup Future Research Inc. and mental wellness startup Modern Health — as well as Beverly Hills education startup Emile Learning Inc., German book publishing startup Inkitt GmbH, New York home care management software startup MedArrive Inc. and a few other companies that are still in stealth mode.
- Josh Coyne, who came to Kleiner from Qatalyst Partners in 2017 as a principal, focuses on software investments in the automation and business process innovation areas. His investments at Kleiner have included San Francisco Secureframe Inc., Atlanta-based digital warehousing startup Stord Inc., Mountain View-based employee support software startup Moveworks Inc. and U.K. video technology startup Synthesia Ltd.
Kleiner is the fourth Bay Area venture firm to announce major new funds already in the new year. Menlo Park-based Andreessen Horowitz on Friday announced it's raised $9 billion to invest across three new funds. Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital said in an SEC filing that it raised $1.16 billion for its seventh flagship fund. And Khosla Ventures raised $557 million for an opportunities fund, the first of its kind for the Menlo Park venture firm.
U.S. venture firms last year raised $128.3 billion in new funds, according to PitchBook Data. That's the first time that figure has ever topped $100 billion. That topped the previous high of $86.9 billion set in 2019.
