Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Sutter Hill Ventures
Silicon Valley's oldest continuously operating venture firm (1964) and its most secretive: an evergreen, partner-capitalised fund that early-backed Nvidia and, since 2009, has made its returns by building enterprise-infrastructure companies itself — Pure Storage, Snowflake and a "Snowflake ecosystem" of incubations — with a managing director often serving as founding CEO.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1964, Palo Alto, California (as the venture arm of a real-estate company, Sutter Hill Ltd.)
- Founders
- William H. (Bill) Draper III and Paul M. Wythes
- Headquarters
- Palo Alto, California (University Avenue); single office
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; a single evergreen fund rather than numbered vintages; partners commit a large share of the capital (reported at more than ~25% of capital invested, per 2012 press); originally licensed as a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC)
- Leadership (2026)
- No public managing partner. Managing directors include Mike Speiser (joined 2008), Tench Coxe (joined 1987; Nvidia director since 1993), Stefan Dyckerhoff (joined 2012), and others; roster not published (verify)
- AUM / capital raised
- Not disclosed. Sutter Hill does not market funds and publishes no AUM. Its Snowflake stake alone was worth ~$12.5bn at the end of Snowflake's first trading day in 2020 (reported)
- Stage focus
- Company creation ("origination") and Series A in enterprise infrastructure, data and security software; historically also semiconductors, healthcare and medical devices; occasional large follow-ons
- Signature investments
- Diablo Systems and Qume (1970s), LSI Logic and Banyan Systems (1980s seed), Nvidia (1993), Pure Storage (2009), Snowflake (2012), Sigma Computing, Observe, Clumio; instructive losses: Lacework (raised at $8.3bn in 2021, sold to Fortinet in 2024 for a small fraction), Clumio (asset sale to Commvault, 2024)
8 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1993
Nvidia
Seed / First Venture Round
2009
Pure Storage
Incubation and Series A
2012
Snowflake
Incubation and Series A
2012
Sumo Logic
Series B Participation
2014
Sigma Computing
Incubation and Series A
2015
Lacework
Incubation and Series A
2017
Clumio
Incubation and Series A
2017
Observe
Incubation and Series A