About us:

KeyNote Ventures is a venture capital firm located in Menlo Park, California. Our goal is to help entrepreneurs create leading information technology companies. We principally invest in early stage businesses where new technologies play a major role and where we have particular expertise. The portfolio company needs to have a strong management team and the potential to become a market leader. In selecting our investments we think about technology globally but invest locally.
 


 

We have over 40 years of cumulative experience in venture capital investing and close to 70 years of substantial operating background at senior executive levels in each of the industries within KeyNote's investment focus. Our strategy has been and will continue to be investing primarily as a lead investor in syndications with other top tier venture capital firms. We provide entrepreneurs funding, but also a network of people and resources, locally and internationally, that provide strategic counsel and operating support for our startups. In this way our global network expands and leverages our portfolio's reach.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philosophy:

 

Establishing a close working relationship with the management teams of portfolio companies is a critical element of KeyNote Ventures' operating philosophy and a key factor in our success to date. We invest our experience, skills and contacts in addition to funds to contribute meaningfully to the success of the portfolio companies. The objective is to add value by providing access to our resources to help solve the challenges that confront young technology companies.

KeyNote maintains a high profile in the investment community and has developed strong partnerships with some of the best venture capital firms in the world. We believe that forming and participating in these syndicates with top venture capital firms reduces certain risks associated with investing. In this way the financial resources of different venture funds support the challenges faced by startup companies. Just as importantly, this productive collaboration offers portfolio companies an even broader network of relationships with other entrepreneurs, industry experts, portfolio companies and target customers.



 

 

 

 

 

Focus :

 

KeyNote makes investments with a clear industry and sector focus. We have identified certain key trends that we believe will shape the technology industry in the next five to ten years and will create major market opportunities. The following are the five areas of investment focus.

Integration of IT and networking: The integration of IT and networking has created a number of attractive growth areas such as network security, network storage, VoIP, and Wi-Fi. KeyNote has a good strategic relationship with some of the top players in these areas that enables us to add unique value to our portfolio companies.

Enterprise Software (the real-time enterprise): We believe there are increased needs for "real time" information for the enterprise customer in areas such as business intelligence and application and information integration through web-services. Also, we are seeing increased demand for corporate compliance and governance software that will necessitate additional software innovation and application interface development. The trend toward IT being provided in the form of service together with increased outsourcing also suggests strong potential growth in this area.

Semiconductor: Integration continues to move to the chip level and functionality continues to be more specialized. Separating functions off of the processor, high-speed performance and new materials including nanotechnologies are also areas of interest. Chips related to networking, wireless and multimedia technologies would continue to be attractive areas of investment.

Mobility, Connectivity and Wireless: As the possible "next big thing," we are very interested in a broad spectrum of wireless/mobile technologies applications, including 8012.11x, Wi-Max, UWB, RFID, and mobile data technologies aimed at end-to-end wireless network management. We believe that tools and applications that allow multiple-media content on portable devices will continue to have strong growth potential.

Digitalization of Content and Multimedia Convergence Technologies: KeyNote will invest in companies that create products to make the vision of a digital networked home a reality, including technology that enables secure, end-to-end connectivity, high quality media streaming, and video on demand. Tools and technologies that allow better digital information and media management are also very promising markets.

 


 


Top

 

Copyright © 2007. KeyNote Ventures. All rights reserved