Interesting RedHerring reference to NextCard and 2 high powered VCs investment (see bolded section)
Google's search results:
Kleiner and Sequoia
By Owen Thomas
Redherring.com
June 3, 1999
Kleiner? Sequoia? Kleiner? Sequoia? Really, why
choose?
Sand Hill Road has many
unwritten rules. One is that if you
want a top VC from a marquee
firm to serve on your board, you'll
have to forsake investments from
other superstars. For example, to
get John Doerr from Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers to
serve on Amazon.com's (Nasdaq:
AMZN) board, Jeff Bezos had to
pass up an attractive deal from Hummer Winblad
Venture Partners.
Like many rules of technology investing, that's all
changing. On Thursday morning, Google, a
search-technology startup founded by two Stanford
graduate students, announced it had secured $25
million in funding from Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia
Capital, as well as a range of high-profile angel
investors.
While that number may seem
staggering for a company's first
round, what caused more jaws to
drop was the company's newly
named board members: yes, Mr.
Doerr, but also Sequoia's Michael
Moritz.
Mr. Doerr and Mr. Moritz
attended a press conference
announcing the funding, held on
the neutral ground of Stanford
University's Gates Computer
Science Building.
It's an unusual, high-powered pairing. Mr. Doerr sits
on the board of Excite@Home -- a fierce competitor
to Yahoo, which Mr. Moritz backed. Mr. Moritz
funded PlanetRx; Mr. Doerr, Drugstore.com. The list
of competing startups goes on and on.
But Mr. Moritz noted that it's hardly the first time
Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia have invested together.
Indeed, as recently as November 1998, both firms put
money into NextCard. But such collaborations have
most frequently been limited to late-stage financings.
SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE
Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins invested equal
amounts in the company, Google's backers said.
Declining to comment on the company's valuation after
this round, Mr. Moritz noted that he generally invests
in companies where the founders and employees retain
more than half of the company.
Mr. Doerr said that his fellow board member was "one
of the smartest venture capitalists in the world ...
outside my partners [at Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers], of course." (He also noted that while this is the
first time he and Mr. Moritz have served on a
company's board together, they worked together on
the political campaign to stop Proposition 211, a
California state ballot measure that would have
exposed technology companies to frivolous
shareholder lawsuits, which went down to defeat
before the voters in 1997.)
In addition to Google CEO Sergey Brin and president
Larry Page, Amazon VP of business development
Ram Shriram also serves on the board. Mr. Brin
wouldn't comment on other investors -- Mr. Bezos has
long been rumored to have put money in -- but it's
likely that Kleiner Perkins- and Sequoia-affiliated
entrepreneurs may have put some money in through
those firms' "side funds."
Mr. Brin and Mr. Page are following in a long tradition
of students who embarked on startups before finishing
their degrees. ("If you print the answer where my
mother can read it, the answer is, 'Yes, I'll finish my
Ph.D.," Mr. Brin noted.)
But, said Mr. Doerr, "It's best not to finish -- right,
Andy?" Andy Bechtolsheim, a cofounder of Sun
Microsystems who invested privately in Google in
September 1998, grinned in response. In Mr. Moritz's
camp, there is the obvious example of Yahoo
cofounders Jerry Yang and David Filo, who cobbled
together the beginnings of the Web directory while
studying at Stanford.
Next for Google is rapid hiring. Mr. Brin estimates the
company's headcount, now 23, could hit 100 by the
end of the year. The first executive hired was Omid
Kordestani, VP of business development, who served
in a similar role at Netscape. While looking for new
search technologies to power Netcenter, he came
across Google, and joined the company in April.
While many portals began as search-technology
companies, Mr. Brin swears that Google will not turn
into a media company. Instead, it's going to focus on
search technology. "That's what we're good at," said
Mr. Brin.
But they're not bad at assembling venture backers,
either.
Google
Is the glut of venture
capital changing the way
startups grow their
business? Share your
thoughts in our private
companies forum.
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