Kleiner Perkins hiring to invest in consumer Internet

November 8, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

komisar21.jpgKleiner Perkins partner Randy Komisar (left) caused a stir earlier this week when he supposedly said that his firm had stopped investing in “Web 2.0″ companies.

Kleiner Perkins is the venture capital firm respected for its Internet investments in companies like Google, Netscape and Amazon. It has been a leader of technology trends over the past two decades.

kleiner-perkins-partner.jpgBut we’ve confirmed firm is hiring a partner to invest in consumer Internet companies, among other things such as wireless and Internet infrastructure. Someone slipped us the job specs (download here), and you’ll see that the firm is looking for quite a classy individual. The candidate must have a sense of humor, be humble, be organized, be intelligent, be a self starter, be analytical….the list goes on.

Anyway, the point is that Komisar’s comments shouldn’t be interpreted to mean the firm has stopped investing in the wider Internet sector (we tried to put things into perspective here; scroll down).

It’s true that Kleiner Perkins has, for the most part, sat out of the boom in companies known as Web 2.0. While “Web 2.0″ is a vague term, it does refer to a specific set of technologies, well defined and described alternatively by Tim O’Reilly and more succinctly by VentureOne. VentureOne says Web 2.0 companies are the following:

a business model that revolves around a dynamic interface facilitating participation through such methods as user-created content, networking, and collaboration. Applications used include podcasting, tagging, blogs, social networking, mashups, and wikis. Technologies used in these applications include: AJAX, RSS, SOA, CSS, XHTML, Atom, and rich Internet applications.

Notably, Kleiner has left the plum opportunities to its rivals, such as Sequoia Capital, which invested in YouTube, before that company was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, Accel Partners, which invested in Facebook, and Benchmark, a backer of Zimbra.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Technologies include "CSS, XHTML"... doesn't that include every web company ever?
  • Steve
    Kleiner is wholly irrelevant in the consumer Internet sector. No decent entrepreneur would consider pitching them for a consumer web business.
  • Valley Grunt
    Hmm. Steve's comment above left me a wee bit bemused:- While KPCB hasn't had any consumer web hits lately, I dare say they are still one of the top-three marquee names in the venture community. Netscape, Amazon, Google were as consumer-webby as you can get...
  • Jason
    I've got to disagree with Steve. KP funded the companies that basically created the consumer Internet as we know it today -- Netscape, Amazon, Google. Not to mention the infrastructure that powers big chunks of the Internet -- Sun Microsystems & Juniper Networks. Just because they've been quiet on investing in Web 2.0 "feature companies" doesn't mean that they're not ready to help build the next great Internet company.
  • David Gong
    I second Jason's comment. Per my experience, KP follows a rigorous value chain impact maximization (lack of better words) valuating process to invest in companies. Anyone could miss some opportunities. But if a Web2.0 company's fundamental business model were so strikingly disruptive and scalable, KP would probably have "hunt" it done. Lately I heard one of the hottest money making venture businesses in China is to farm potatoes. When you have billion people hungry for French Fries, you bet someone will take a second look at earth moving farmers with serious many 1s and 0s in mind.
  • As others have stated KPs funded some of best and in my opinion will continue to do so. Their expertise is in hiring top talent that sees both the forest and the trees. Note: there's something to be said for experience.