Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm specializing in early stage investments. The firm’s initial investments typically sit in the $3 million to $5 million range, and over the lifetime of a relationship the firm will often invest $5 million to $15 million in a portfolio company.

Benchmark Capital was founded in 1995 and is based in Menlo Park, California with an additional office in Herzliya Pituach, Israel. In 2007, London-based Benchmark Europe became an independent firm, named Balderton Capital.

The firm has been recognized for its commitment to open source and is noted for creating the first equal ownership and compensation structure for its partners. General partners include Alex Balkanski, Matt Cohler, Bruce Dunlevie, Peter Fenton, Bill Gurley, Kevin Harvey, Bob Kagle, Mitch Lasky and Steve Spurlock.

Benchmark Capital has invested in more than 150 startups since its inception and manages nearly $3 billion in committed capital. Investments include AOL, eBay, Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red Hat, Tropos Networks, Infinera, MySQL, OpenTable, Second Life, Tellme Networks, Yelp, Inc., CTERA Networks, Lithium Technologies, Zillow, 1-800-Flowers, Ebags.com, Friendster, JAMDAT, MetaCafe, Palm Computing, and Seeking Alpha.

In December 2004, Benchmark Capital invested $10 million in ServiceSource. The company’s shares rose 21.8 percent following its March 2011 IPO. Benchmark Capital provided Zipcar’s first institutional round of funding of $10 million in January 2005. During Zipcar’s April 2011 IPO, shares rose 67 percent and closed with a 56 percent gain on the first day of trading.

Benchmark Capital participated in Twitter’s $35 million Series C funding in February 2009 and its $100 million Series D funding in September 2009. The venture capital firm led Zendesk’s $6 million Series B funding in August 2009 and participated in its $19 million Series C funding in December 2010. More recently, Benchmark Capital participated in Instagram’s $7 million Series A funding and Uber’s $11 million funding round, both in February 2011.