In 1911, Henry Phipps founded Bessemer Securities to reinvest the proceeds of his sale of Carnegie Steel for the benefit of his descendents. The start-up investment operations were spun out into Bessemer Venture Partners.

"…it is, nevertheless, impossible for me to convey any adequate idea of what were my feelings when I saw this incandescent mass rise slowly from the mould: the first large prism of cast malleable iron that the eye of man had ever rested on. This was no mere laboratory experiment." - Sir Henry Bessemer

In  1855, Sir Henry Bessemer demonstrated the process for making stronger steel more quickly and inexpensively than conventional methods. In 1874, Henry Phipps and Andrew Carnegie adopted this process in a startup mill at Carnegie Steel.

More than 100 of Bessemer's portfolio companies have gone public on exchanges from the NYSE and NASDAQ to London's AIM and India's BSE.

Bessemer initially operated out of offices on Park Avenue, co-located with Bessemer Securities, its primary limited partner. Bessemer's New York office is now in Larchmont, eighteen miles north of Manhattan.

One of Bessemer's early private investments was in W.R. Grace, the specialty chemical company. Other early investments include International Paper, Ingersoll Rand, and Automatic Sprinkler Corporation of America (now Figgie International).

Bessemer has invested in some of the pioneers of the computer age, from Four Phase Systems (distributed data processing) through Parametric Technologies (CAD-CAM) to Kovio (developing a printed semiconductor).

Bessemer opened its California office in 1976, becoming the first VC firm with offices on both coasts.

Ungermann-Bass pioneered local area networking (the term "LAN" was actually coined in the living room of BVP's Neill Brownstein). Brownstein led the company's first institutional financing in 1980. Ungermann-Bass went public in 1983 (NASDAQ:UNGR).

"When we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity." --Maxim 185, Publius Syrus, 42 BC.

Felda Hardymon joined Bessemer in 1981. He specialized in technology investments but also inaugurated Bessemer's retail practice with investments in Staples and The Sports Authority. In addition to his work with Bessemer, Felda now teaches Venture Capital at Harvard Business School.

Maxim designed some of the first linear and mixed signal circuits that connected the real  and digital worlds by detecting, measuring, and converting natural signals like temperature, pressure, or sound, into digital signals. BVP invested in Maxim's first three rounds, starting in 1983. The company went public in 1988 (NASDAQ:MXIM).

In 1984, Felda Hardymon and Bill Burgin opened the Wellesley Hills office outside Boston.

Staples invented the office superstore concept and today is the largest operator of office superstores in the world. BVP's Felda Hardymon and Bill Burgin invested in each of the company's four rounds, starting in 1986. It went public in 1989 (NASDAQ:SPLS).

In 1986, Bessemer launched its life sciences practice, which has since included investments such as Isis Pharmaceuticals (ISIP),  Vistacare (VSTA), and Affymax (AFFY).

Chris Gabrieli has led Bessemer's life science practice since 1986. Previously, he had dropped out of medical school to run GMIS, a medical information company backed by Bessemer. In 1999, Chris took a leave from Bessemer and established Massachusetts 2020, an education-oriented non-profit.

Healthcare Practice Overview BVP has invested in healthcare-related companies since the early 1980s. Drawing on our investors’ experience in medicine, science, information technology, and management, BVP has backed developers of innovative therapeutics, providers of healthcare services, and supplier

Founded in 1986, Bright Horizons has become the world’s leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, early education and work/life solutions. Bessemer invested in its first two rounds. In 1997, Bright Horizons went public as BFAM

Neill Brownstein led the turn around financing of Tolerant Computing, later named Veritas Software. The leading file storage systems provider, Veritas went public in 1993 and merged with Symantec in 2004.

David Cowan joined Bessemer in 1992. Of his 45 early-stage investments, 18 were acquired and 19 went public.

Bessemer’s investment practice in data security ranks among our most successful, and we’re proud to have funded more leading innovators in data security than any other venture capital firm (as far as we know).

Bob Goodman joined Bessemer in 1998 and is the founding partner of Bessemer's investment office in Larchmont, New York. 

Many of Bessemer's investments have focused on improving the performance of switching technology, through such companies as: Cascade (CSCC), Sahara (acquired by Cascade ), Sirocco (acq. by Sycamore), Aptis (acq. by Nortel), Wavesmith (acq. by Ciena), and Sonus (SONS).

Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN) first commercialized wavelength division multiplexing as a way to increase the capacity of optical networks. David Cowan invested for Bessemer in the B round.

BVP opened an office in Herzliya in 2007 and seeks to contribute to Israel's rich heritage of technological innovation.

VeriSign is the leading provider of trusted infrastructure services. David Cowan co-founded the company in 1995 as a spin-out from RSA, and served as VeriSign's initial Chairman and CFO. The company went public in 1998 (NASDAQ:VRSN).

Chini Krishnan founded Valicert to commercialize his cryptographic inventions, taking it public and then selling it to Tumbleweed—both companies were David Cowan investments. As a Bessemer Operating Partner, Chini founded Vimo, a health insurance comparison site, in 2005. He advises Bessemer companies in the U.S. and in Mumbai, where he was raised.

Bessemer companies such as AirTech in England, FG Wireless in China, Advanced Recognition Technologies in Israel, Flarion in the US, and Celtel in Africa have developed the world's infrastructure for cell phone service.

Rob Chandra entered the venture industry in 1996 and has since been involved with 17 successful investments in the communications, semiconductor, cleantech, and internet sectors. Rob also leads the firm's India practice, where Bessemer has made growth equity investments in firms such as Motilal Oswal and Shriram EPC. 

Just as BVP saw the long term opportunity when it entered Silicon Valley in the 1970s, we see a similar opportunity in India today.

Mark Vadon left Boston Consulting Group in 1998 to launch Internet Diamonds, now Blue Nile, the leading on-line retailer of diamonds and jewelry. Bessemer's David Cowan and Joanna Strober invested in the Series A round, and the company went public as NILE in 2004.

Felda Hardymon led Bessemer's investment in Celtel, the largest pan-African cellphone service provider. Celtel was acquired by MTC in 2005 for $3.4 billion.

Cryptographer and writer Bruce Schneier turned to David Cowan at Bessemer to lead the Series A round in his startup Counterpane. Bruce is now Chief Security Officer at British Telecom, which acquired Counterpane in 2006.

Flarion developed a low cost, low latency, high speed wireless data access network for broadband wireless Internet access. Bob Goodman led BVP's investments in the company and served on the board until it was acquired by Qualcomm.

Prior to joining Bessemer in 2001, Rob Stavis led Salomon Brother's Arbitrage desk. Rob invests in financial services and consumer internet startups like Skype, where he led the A round.

With expertise and experience in financial services and technology, the partners at BVP can understand and anticipate the changes occur in the rapidly evolving sector financial services sector.

Mellanox, a fabless semiconductor company, is the leader in InfiniBand- and Ethernet-based interconnects. Rob Chandra led the company's financing in late 2001, and served on the board until it  went public in 2007 (NASDAQ:MLNX).

Dr. Paul Mockapetris, an IEEE Internet Award winner and former IETF Chairman, invented the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) in 1983 at USC. Paul is now Chairman and Chief Scientist of Nominum, the developer of industrial-strength DNS software. In 2001 David Cowan led Nominum's B round.

Ed joined Bessemer Venture Partners in 2001 as Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Bessemer, he was Chief Operating Officer and a financial services investor at J.P. Morgan Capital, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan.  Previously,

Bessemer's long history of successful enterprise software investing alerted us to the emergence of Software as a Service (SaaS). We have been fortunate to work with many of the early pioneers in this high growth market segment, and continue to invest actively in it.

Skype is a global peer-to-peer Internet communications service. It was acquired in 2005 by eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY).

While a Bessemer associate, Chris Dixon founded SiteAdvisor to help internet users avoid malicious and spammy internet sites. Rob Stavis led Chris' Series A round for Bessemer in 2004 and a year later McAfee acquired SiteAdvisor.

BVP's interest in more efficient production methods dates to its founder's application of the Bessemer process to steel making. BVP's Cleantech  investors combine their diverse backgrounds to help young companies deliver the innovations essential to meet the world's growing need for environmentally friendly products and services.

A third of Bessemer's 2006 deals were in India.

Israel's entrepreneurial culture has nourished many Bessemer companies, such as DSP Group (DSPG), P Com (PCOM), Mellanox (MLNX), Cyota (acq. by RSA), and ART Advanced Recognition Technologies (acq. by Nuance).

  Bessemer Blogs To learn more about the inner workings of BVP’s investors, check their blogs for opinions on everything from venture capital to specific industry trends:   David Cowan: Who Has Time for This? The Best Startup Advice I Have