CB Insights Unveils 2018 Top 100 Venture Capitalists with Notable Healthcare Investors Highlighted

Image source: CB Insights official website

CB Insights has partnered with The New York Times for the third consecutive year to launch the Top 100 VC list, identifying the world’s best venture capitalists.

The rankings are based on CB Insights data collected and organized using machine learning technology (known as The Cruncher), supplemented by editorial screening of thousands of submissions received from venture capital firms and corporations.

As a founding partner at Benchmark, Bill Gurley is widely hailed as the premier tech-focused venture capitalist, ranking first among the Top 100. Benchmark has previously invested in numerous unicorn-level companies, including eBay, Dropbox, Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, Instagram, WeWork, Yelp, Zendesk, Zillow, Zipcar, CyanogenMod, Domo, New Relic, Nextdoor, Stitch Fix, and Juniper Networks.

Steve Anderson of Baseline Ventures rose from 10th place in 2017 to 2nd, with notable investment successes including the e-commerce company Stitch Fix. He was also an early investor in Heroku, Instagram, Machine Zone, and Social Finance.

Robert Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners jumped from 60th place in 2017 to 18th, primarily driven by his investments in Juno Therapeutics, Denali Therapeutics, and GRAIL.

Rob Hayes of First Round Capital jumped from 85th place in 2017 to 7th, marking the largest rank increase among investors, driven by investments in Uber and Square. First Round Capital made its initial investment in Uber in 2010, when the company was valued at $4 million. In December 2017, an investor consortium led by SoftBank officially completed a tender offer for Uber shares, valuing the company at $48 billion.

The venture capitalists making their debut on the TOP100 list include Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures (an investor in Roku), Meyer Malka of Ribbit Capital (an investor in Credit Karma), and Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures (an investor in MongoDB).

Sequoia Capital’s Alfred Lin (No. 4), Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Liew (No. 10), Sequoia Capital’s Neil Shen (No. 11), Accel Partners’ Ping Li (No. 33), GSR Ventures’ Xiaohu Zhu (No. 47),Jenny Lee of GGV Capital (No. 53), Hans Tung of GGV Capital (No. 59), Dixon Doll of DCM Ventures (No. 69), Yihong Guo of IDG Capital (No. 92), and Gary Fu of GGV Capital (No. 95), among other Chinese professionals, are also listed.

Of the 100 investors on this list, only nine are women.

Joshua Kopelman is the Managing Director of First Round Capital and ranks third on the TOP 100 list. He has invested in LinkedIn and Flatiron Health. In March 2018, Roche, a globally renowned pharmaceutical company, announced its intention to acquire Flatiron Health, an oncology big data company, for $1.9 billion. Headquartered in New York, Flatiron Health is a healthcare technology and services company that is a market leader in electronic health record (EHR) software and real-world evidence management in the field of oncology.

Brian Singerman, a partner at the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Founders Fund, focuses on investments in healthcare, biotechnology, and education, ranking fifth on this list. His notable portfolio companies in the medical sector include the biotech firm Stemcentrx and the health insurance startup Oscar Health.

Mary Meeker, the “Queen of the Internet” who has published the Internet Trends Report for 22 consecutive years, ranks ninth. She is a heavyweight managing partner appointed by KPCB in the healthcare sector. Since its founding in 1972, KPCB has invested in approximately 500 startups, with more than 150 successfully going public. KPCB’s most notable achievement in the digital health space is its investment in Teladoc, which later became the world’s first publicly traded telemedicine company.

Over his 30-year career, Robert Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners has seen more than 20 of his portfolio companies go public. As an early investor in Illumina and Aviron, he ranks 18th on the list. Nelsen also invested in the renowned Juno Therapeutics and Grail, a spin-off from Illumina that is dedicated to developing blood-based tests for multiple types of cancer.

Venture capital titan Bryan Roberts ranks 26th on this list, with his notable healthcare investments including Stride Health and Grand Rounds.

Carl Gordon ranks 49th on the list. He has invested in Acerta Pharma, Seragon Pharmaceuticals, and Aragon Pharmaceuticals. OrbiMed has become the world’s largest healthcare investment firm.

Below is the complete list