home | about us | team | portfolio | for entrepreneurs | for limited partners | news | contact us | search


IVP's founder, Reid Dennis, is one of the pioneers of the venture capital industry. In 1952, six months after leaving Stanford University armed with his BSEE and MBA degrees, Reid invested $20,000, which was virtually all he had to his name, in privately-held Ampex Corporation in Redwood City. Fortunately for Reid, that first investment was very successful, and after Ampex went public, that $20,000 stake grew to over $1 million in market value during the next several years.

In 1974, backed by a $5 million commitment from American Express (his former employer), Reid formed Institutional Venture Associates (IVA) and raised $19 million from six institutions. That was roughly half of all the capital raised in the United States that year by private venture capital partnerships. Over the life of IVA, the original $19 million grew to over $180 million. In 1980, Reid then formed Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and the firm has grown into one of the most successful venture capital and growth equity firms in the industry.

With more than a quarter century of investment history, IVP has backed many well-known companies such as Altera, Ask Jeeves, Aspect, Atmel, Borland, Cirrus Logic, Clarify, ComScore, Concur, Exabyte, FormFactor, Foundry Networks, Juniper Networks, LSI Corporation, Netflix, Polycom, Seagate, Synchronoss and Tivo. The firm's recent exits include ArcSight (ARST), Business.com (RHD), ComScore (SCOR), Danger (MSFT), MySQL (JAVA) and Quigo (TWX). We are constantly seeking market leaders in emerging growth markets and look forward to helping talented management teams build the next generation of global technology leaders.
print page


©2009 Institutional Venture Partners (IVP)