Benchmark

Benchmark (officially Benchmark Capital Advisors LLC) is an American venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1995, it manages roughly $6 billion in assets and is known for two things: an equal partnership structure where every general partner receives the same compensation and governance rights, and a focus on early-stage investing where the firm typically leads the first institutional round and takes a board seat in every company it backs.¹³

Founding and structure

Benchmark was founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden.¹ Kagle had spent a dozen years at Technology Venture Investors, where he was the only venture investor in Microsoft.¹³¹⁹ Dunlevie and Rachleff came from Merrill Pickard Anderson & Eyre, and Harvey had invested in database software at the same firm.¹³ All five had experienced the economics of hierarchical venture firms firsthand — where founding partners controlled management companies and junior partners had no governance rights — and founded Benchmark with an equal partnership structure instead.¹⁹

Profits are distributed equally among general partners, regardless of which partner sourced or leads a deal.¹⁹ Kagle, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, and was the first in his family to attend college, held what the Acquired podcast described as "an almost religious fervor" that anything other than an equal partnership was morally wrong for a venture firm.¹⁹ The structure means all partners share responsibility for every portfolio company, not just the board partner. It also means that when a partner leaves, they do not retain economics from the firm's existing funds.³

The founders set a goal of becoming the number one venture capital firm in Silicon Valley within ten years, hence the name Benchmark.¹³ A 1995 New York Times article on venture firm politics, quoted on the Acquired podcast, included an anonymous source saying of Merrill Pickard: "If Merrill Pickard had divided the rewards more equitably, they wouldn't have split up."¹⁹ Another quote in the same article, from Kagle himself: "Today, the power is much more distributed. Nobody can claim that they are making all the money for the firm."¹⁹

Benchmark employs roughly a dozen people and does not maintain platform teams, service teams, or a dedicated marketing staff.³ The firm raises modest-sized funds by industry standards, typically around $425 million each.²²⁰ The 2024 fund was symbolically styled "Benchmark 1" to signal what the investor letter called a new "technological era" in generative AI.²

eBay and the first fund

Benchmark's first fund, raised in 1995 at $85 million, returned 92x on invested capital, turning into $7.8 billion.¹³ In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company.¹¹ When eBay went public in September 1998, Benchmark's stake was worth $5 billion by April 1999 — a return of roughly 750x on the eBay investment alone.¹¹¹²

The eBay deal became the subject of a book, "eBoys," by Randall Stross, who had writer-in-residence access at Benchmark from 1997 to 1999.¹³ The title referred to the six partners who managed the firm in its early years — the original five plus David Beirne, who joined in May 1997 from executive recruiting.¹³

The second fund, raised in 1997 at $125 million, was another winner, eventually worth $2.5 billion.¹³ But Benchmark also backed companies that failed. Webvan, the internet grocery delivery company, went bankrupt in the summer of 2001. Benchmark was an early backer, though it lost only its $3.5 million initial investment.¹³ Other bets that faltered in the dot-com bust included Living.com (furniture), PlanetRx, and Ashford.com (watches).¹⁶

Twitter, Instagram, and the second generation

After the dot-com bust, several partners left and new ones arrived. Peter Fenton joined in 2006 from Accel Partners, where he had led investments in JBoss and Wily Technology.⁷ Bill Gurley, who had been a partner at Hummer Winblad, joined in 1999.⁶ Mitch Lasky, a former gaming executive, joined in 2007.¹ Matt Cohler, an early Facebook employee, joined in 2009.¹

Fenton led Benchmark's investment in Twitter in 2006 and sat on its board until 2016.¹ Benchmark was also an early investor in Instagram (before its acquisition by Facebook), Dropbox, New Relic, and Yelp.¹⁴¹ Lasky led the $13.5 million Series A in Snapchat in February 2013, when the app was valued at $60–70 million.¹⁵ At Snapchat's IPO in 2017, Benchmark's stake was worth approximately $2.9 billion.¹

Uber

In 2011, Gurley led an $11 million investment in Uber for roughly 20% of the company.¹ By mid-2017, that stake was worth over $7 billion.¹⁰ Gurley sat on Uber's board for six years and was the partner most closely involved with the company.⁶

In August 2017, Benchmark filed a lawsuit against Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick in Delaware Chancery Court, accusing him of fraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.⁸ The suit alleged that Kalanick concealed mismanagement from the board and engineered an expansion of the board that gave him control of additional seats.⁹

The New York Times described the lawsuit as unprecedented in Silicon Valley venture capital, where investors almost never sue founders.⁸ Several entrepreneurs criticized Benchmark for suing a founder, while Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures defended the action as necessary corporate governance.¹ The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2018 as a condition of SoftBank's investment in Uber.¹ Gurley stepped off Uber's board in December 2017.⁶

Benchmark has also intervened in other portfolio companies. The firm removed Nanosolar founder Martin Roscheisen as CEO in 2007 after the solar panel startup struggled to commercialize its technology.¹ Benchmark was also the first major institutional investor in WeWork in 2012, and pressured the company's management during its governance crisis in 2019, when WeWork's IPO collapsed amid concerns about founder Adam Neumann's self-dealing and control over the company.¹

Fund performance and the AI shift

As of early 2026, Benchmark's 2020 fund is worth more than 10x what investors put in, with portfolio companies including Fireworks, Mercor, Sierra, and Legora.⁴ The 2024 fund sits at roughly 3x investors' initial investment, including a stake in Manus, the AI agent company that Meta agreed to buy for more than $2 billion in December 2025.⁴¹⁷¹⁸ Benchmark had led Manus's $75 million Series B round in April 2025.¹⁷

Benchmark's first eight funds, raised and invested between 1995 and 2019, returned more than 7.5x net of fees and carry.³ In June 2024, the firm raised a $425 million eleventh fund, sized the same as its predecessor.²²⁰ The firm also invested in OpenAI's $300 million tender offer in 2023.¹

Partner transitions

The period from 2017 to 2026 saw significant turnover among Benchmark's partners. Bill Gurley announced in April 2020 that he would not join the firm's next fund after 21 years, though he remains connected to the firm managing existing investments.⁶²¹ Mitch Lasky and Matt Cohler also stepped back from active investing around the same period.¹ Victor Lazarte departed in 2025 to start his own fund, and Miles Grimshaw left by 2026.¹

In October 2025, Everett Randle joined from Kleiner Perkins's growth fund as a general partner.⁴¹ In February 2026, Jack Altman — the former CEO of Lattice and founder of Alt Capital — joined as the firm's fifth general partner.⁴ Current general partners are Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria, Chetan Puttagunta, Jack Altman, and Everett Randle.⁴ Sarah Tavel, a former Pinterest executive who joined in 2015, serves as venture partner.¹

A 2024 analysis by the newsletter Newcomer argued that by "staying the course" with its small fund, small team model, Benchmark had "lost its way" as the partnership shrank from six general partners to three, limiting the number of board seats it could hold and the deals it could source.⁵ The piece also noted that the firm's returns remained strong even at three partners. The hiring of Altman and Randle, the 10x returns on the 2020 fund, and the Manus exit followed in short order.⁴

References

1. Benchmark (venture capital firm) — Wikipedia(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
2. Benchmark Is Raising A New $425M Fund — Forbes(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
3. What Is Venture Capital Now Anyway? — NYT(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
4. Benchmark Hires Jack Altman, Sees Recent AI Bets Surge — Bloomberg(accessed Apr 18, 2026)
5. By Staying the Course, Benchmark Has Lost Its Way — Newcomer