Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC

A venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. The firm was named after its four founding partners: Eugene Kleiner (emeritus), Tom Perkins (emeritus), Frank J. Caufield (emeritus), and Brook Byers. The firm was formed in 1972. At that point, the founders of most venture capital firms came from financial backgrounds, however Kleiner Perkins' founders distinguished themselves through their industry experience—Kleiner as a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Perkins as one of the leaders of Hewlett-Packard's early computer hardware division. Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in over 500 ventures, including AOL, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign, and Xilinx. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public. Many other ventures have achieved success through mergers and acquisitions (M&A).