Highland Capital Partners

Highland Capital Partners

Type	LLC
Founded	1988
Founder(s)	Paul Maeder, Bob Higgins
Headquarters	Lexington, MA
Industry	Venture Capital
Products	Investments, Private equity funds
Total assets	$3.0 billion
Website	www.hcp.com

Highland Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that focuses on investments in seed, early, and growth stage companies in the communications, consumer, digital media, healthcare, and information technology sectors. The firm's partners include: Peter Bell, Sean Dalton, Bob Davis, Richard de Silva, Bob Higgins, John Hsin, Paul Maeder, Fergal Mullen, Corey Mulloy, Dan Nova, Dr. Bijan Salehizadeh, Chuan Thor, and Kuantai Yeh.

Founded in 1988, the company is headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, and has offices in Menlo Park, California; Geneva, Switzerland; and Shanghai, China.

The Highland Consumer Fund was formed by Highland in 2006 to target retail and consumer products and services investment opportunities. The firm finished fundraising in 2007 with over $300 million of investor commitments, exceeding its $250 million target.^[1]

[edit] Investments and investment funds

Highland typically the first institutional investor in the companies they back.^[2]

From inception in 1988 through the middle of 2008, the firm has raised eight venture capital funds with aggregate investor commitments of approximately $2.6 billion:

• 1988 — Highland Capital Partners ($78 million)
• 1992 — Highland Capital Partners II ($86 million)
• 1996 — Highland Capital Partners III ($126 million)
• 1998 — Highland Capital Partners IV ($250 million)
• 2000 — Highland Capital Partners V ($505 million)
• 2001 — Highland Capital Partners VI ($808 million)
• 2006 — Highland Capital Partners VII ($800 million)
• 2007 — Highland Consumer Fund I ($303 million)

[edit] Notable investments

The company has invested some $2.5 billion in more than 200 companies since its founding.^[3] Among Highland's most notable current and former investments are:

Source: Company website^[4]

[edit] Current and former employees

In February 2005, Thomas G. Stemberg, the founder and former CEO of Staples joined Highland.^[5] Other notable members of the team include Bob Davis, the founder of Lycos, and Wycliffe Grousbeck, who reduced his role in Highland to become managing partner and co-owner of the Boston Celtics.

[edit] Other

Highland Capital Partners is not affiliated with Highland Capital Management, the multi billion dollar distressed investment firm and hedge fund sponsor and mutual fund manager based in Dallas, Texas.

[edit] References

This article about a private equity or venture capital firm based in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

v • d • e Private equity and venture capital investment firms Investment strategy Buyout • Venture • Growth • Mezzanine • Secondaries History History of private equity and venture capital • Early history of private equity • Private equity in the 1980s • Private equity in the 1990s • Private equity in the 21st century Investors Institutional Investors • Pension funds • Insurance companies • Endowments • Fund of funds • High net worth individuals • Sovereign wealth funds Private equity firms • Venture capital firms • Portfolio companies