Mumbai: Steve Jurvetson earned his wings as a top-notch venture capitalist (VC) in the US Silicon Valley when free Internet-based email service Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft Corp. for $400 million.
Jurvetson was a founder investor in Hotmail on behalf of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), the now legendary Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm he co-founded with Timothy Draper and John Fisher in the early 1990s.
Steve Jurvetson, co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Since Hotmail and other Internet investments, Jurvetson’s consuming passion has been nanotechnology—a science that deals with matter at an extremely small scale—and at the turn of the century, he convinced his partners that nanotech was a space worth looking into seriously. That has translated into 15-20% of DFJ’s global investments being in the nanotech area.
For DFJ, being an early champion of nanotech as an emerging opportunity falls in line with the firm’s track record for spotting disruptive technologies early on.
Its earlier successful bets, apart from Hotmail, include Baidu.com Inc. and Skype Inc., later acquired by eBay Inc.
Overall, it has backed some 300 companies, has over $5.5 billion (Rs21,670 crore) in capital commitments and is the most globally diversified Silicon Valley venture capital fund—it has offices in 33 cities across the world.
The firm set up an office in Bangalore this year and has allocated $75 million out of its $600 million global DFJ IX fund to kick-start investments here. The local team is led by Mohanjit Jolly and Sateesh Andra.
Unlike other non-US markets, DFJ has chosen to invest directly in India instead of working with a local affiliate (it invested through DFJ ePlanet Ventures, an affiliate fund, earlier). It has invested in seven companies already, among them mobile advertising firm Gingersoft Media Pvt. Ltd (which operates under the mGinger brand), online DVD rental Seventymm.com Services Pvt. Ltd and electric car manufacturer Reva Electric Car Co. Pvt. Ltd.
Jurvetson, who builds supersonic rockets when he is not evangelizing nanotech, is headed to India for the first time in early 2008. In an exclusive telephone interview to Mint, he spoke about where India fits into DFJ’s plans and what going global means for Valley-based venture capital firms. Edited excerpts:
You’ve chosen to invest directly here. Where does that put India on the DFJ map?
India is very important to us. We have a similar strategy in China. I think India, along with China, will emerge as great an opportunity as the US. At some point, I see India also having many affiliate funds in different sectors.
What does ‘going global’ imply for the classic Silicon Valley-based model of venture capital investing, which has traditionally focused inwards?
Now a VC has to simultaneously be both, global and local. That’s why a lot of VCs have trouble adjusting to new markets.