Talk:Institutional Venture Partners

Logo request for the infobox
My name is Amelia and I work in comms for IVP. I have a few suggestions to help update this article, but I'd like to start with a request regarding the IVP logo in the infobox, since the current file is out of date.

I was able to upload the new logo to Wikimedia Commons under fair use licensing: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IVP_Logo_IVPBlue_CMYK.jpg

Does this new file work? Can I do anything else to help? This is my first time posting to Wikipedia so I'm not sure how this works. I did post a disclosure to my user page noting that I work for IVP and I'm aware that I should limit my edit activity to Talk page requests. Any help you can give me would be appreciated as I'm still learning the ropes here. AGale for IVP (talk) 18:15, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ Pegnawl (talk) 15:32, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Request for deleting Industry recognition section and replacing it with an Operations section
Hi there, Amelia from IVP here again. I have a second request about potentially deleting the Industry recognition section that I wanted to float by Wikipedia editors. Right now the flag at the top of the article says "This article needs additional citations for verification." I'm working on putting together a History draft that includes more meticulously sourced claims and important chronological details. But in the meantime, I wonder if simply deleting the Industry recognitions section would help improve the quality of this article (since some of these recognitions don't seem particularly notable) and address some of the identified sourcing concerns (since several claims in this section lack citations).

It's an honor, of course, for IVP to be recognized by major industry outlets, but I don't see lists of awards or recognitions like this on other venture capital firm articles and the presentation here doesn't seem encyclopedic.

Again looking at other articles, it seems like Operations sections that cover how firms operate and invest are pretty standard. I put together a draft section like that for this article that includes a list of Notable investments by decade:

Operations and investments
IVP is a venture capital firm structured as an equal partnership with nine general partners. The partners are generalists without specific areas of specialization. The firm focuses on investments in AI, consumer, digital health, enterprise infrastructure, fintech, gaming, and SaaS. In an interview with TechCrunch, general partner Jules Maltz said that IVP wants to focus "on the 10 to 12 fastest growing, most prominent late stage tech companies each year, and fund those businesses.”

Like most venture capital firms, IVP opens individual venture funds and then asks for financial commitments from limited partners. The pool of money is then invested in private companies. Limited partners in IVP's funds have historically included university endowments, public pension funds, funds of funds, and wealthy individuals. Every IVP fund has different fund managers.

The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It also maintains offices in London and San Francisco.

I tried to focus on high-level operational details for IVP and on investments in companies that are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia entries. Again, this seems to be standard for how Wikipedia handles investments made my other venture firms.

Per my post above, I'm new to Wikipedia but have read up on site guidelines over the past few weeks and have spent a lot of time looking at how other articles are structured. Definitely curious what others think about this deletion + replacement suggestion. AGale for IVP (talk) 18:18, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm tagging David Gerard, W Nowicki, Urbanrenewal, ArcticSnowWind, and SunDawn as you've edited this article in the past. Any feedback you could provide here would be helpful. AGale for IVP (talk) 20:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed that this is far better content than Industry recognitions, however much of the proposed language is pulled from profiles, rather than RS. Implemented all proposed text supported by RS. Pegnawl (talk) 15:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Updating the History section
Hi there, Amelia from IVP here again. I have a third and final request about updating the History section, which currently lacks proper citations and reads like an assortment of random claims. I've put together a new draft that includes additional chronological details, all supported by meticulous sourcing:

History
Reid W. Dennis, the founder of Institutional Venture Partners, began his venture investment career in 1952. Dennis was working as an analyst with the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company at the time. He began by making an individual investment into Ampex, a technology company that developed audio tape products. He also developed an informal network of screened individual investors (now called angel investors).

In 1974, Dennis secured a $5 million commitment from American Express and formed Institutional Venture Associates. The new firm then raised $19 million from six insurance companies for its first fund. That figure represented nearly half of all the capital raised in the United States that year by private venture capital partnerships. IVA's assets under management grew to $180 million by the end of the decade.

In 1980, the two other partners in IVA left to form their own funds. Dennis then changed IVA's name to Institutional Venture Partners and raised a $22 million fund. Among the investments from that first IVP fund were Seagate, LSI Logic, and Stratus Technologies. Another fund was raised in 1982, this time for $40 million, and more funds soon followed. In 1983 Mary Jane Elmore became a general partner, making her one of the first female venture capital partners in the United States.

In 1988 the firm was able to raise $115 million for its fifth fund. Dennis brought on a new partner, Norm Fogelsong, in 1989. Four other partners would eventually join the firm as well, including Ruthann Quindlen in 1994. In 1999, three partners from IVP joined with three partners from Brentwood Venture Capital to form two new firms: Redpoint Ventures, which would specialize in early stage digital media and internet companies, and Versant Ventures, which would focus on health science investments. The split into three firms allowed IVP to continue to manage its own portfolio and invest in fast-growing technology companies.

By 2008, IVP had invested in around 200 companies and executed around 85 IPOs, including Seagate, TiVo, and Netflix.

Dennis stepped down from his position as general partner ahead of the firm's twelfth fund in 2010, which raised $600 million. Two years later, the firm raised $1 billion for its fourteenth fund. This fund was the largest in IVP's history and brought the firm's total committed capital to $4 billion with a portfolio that included Buddy Media, Dropbox, and Twitter. IVP's sixteenth fund raised $1.5 billion in 2017, its seventeenth fund raised $1.8 billion in 2021, and its eighteenth fund raised $1.6 billion in 2024.

In August 2023, IVP opened its first international office in London. The expansion to Europe reflected the firm's growing portfolio of European startups, including DeepL, MySQL, Supercell, UiPath, and Wise.

IVP founder Reid Dennis died in March 2024.

My intent with the above draft was to put something together that felt more structured and cohesive than the current History section. For my research, I relied upon coverage of IVP in major news outlets (The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters) and business and finance publications (Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, Private Equity International). For sources behind paywalls or pulled from Nexis, I included the relevant quotation from the cited piece.

Per my posts above, I'm putting all of my requests on the article Talk page rather than editing directly. Please let me know what you think. AGale for IVP (talk) 20:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm tagging David Gerard, W Nowicki, Urbanrenewal, ArcticSnowWind, and SunDawn as you've edited this article in the past. Any feedback you could provide here would be helpful. AGale for IVP (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Meticulous indeed! By my review of the refs and proposed language, this is a clear improvement and helps us address the tag on top of page. Pegnawl (talk) 16:11, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you so, so much Pegnawl. I was worried nobody was seeing these requests! I'm glad you think the new History section is a clear improvement, as I spent a lot of time working on the draft.
 * I just posted a new request about updating the introduction that I'm hoping you can look at as well. Really appreciate your help here + any further guidance you can provide. AGale for IVP (talk) 18:42, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Updating the Introduction
Hi there, Amelia from IVP here again. First, many thanks to Pegnawl for their help with my previous requests. I hope you'll agree that the article is in much better shape now! Given these substantial updates, I'm hoping that the article introduction can be slightly reworked to reflect this new content. Would this work?

Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a US-based venture capital investment firm focusing on fast-growing technology companies. IVP was founded in 1980, making it one of the first venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

As you can see, my rewording is very close to the current text. I just replaced "later-stage companies and growth equity investments" with "fast-growing technology companies" since that's the language used in the Operations and investments section. I also lightly revised the second sentence for clarity and added a source.

Please let me know what you think. AGale for IVP (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * @Pegnawl Following up on this request as you recently helped with updating the page. Really appreciate your help here + any further guidance you can provide. Thank you! AGale for IVP (talk) 20:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)