Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
CRV (Charles River Ventures)
One of the oldest US venture partnerships still operating. It was founded in Boston in 1970 to commercialise MIT-area technology, moved its centre of gravity to Silicon Valley in the 2000s, and is known for disciplined early-stage leads (Zendesk, Airtable, Vercel, DoorDash at seed) and for twice handing money back to LPs rather than deploying it at the top of a market.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1970, Boston, Massachusetts, as Charles River Partnership / Charles River Ventures
- Founders
- A group of Boston entrepreneurs and investors including Richard M. ("Dick") Burnes Jr.; some accounts also credit Ray Stata (Analog Devices) with helping to found it (verify the full founding group)
- Headquarters
- Palo Alto, California (main); historically Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts. A Silicon Valley office opened ~1999–2000 (verify current status of the Boston-area office)
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; numbered flagship early-stage funds (Fund XX raised 2025) plus "CRV Select" funds for later-stage follow-on and opportunity investments
- Leadership (2026)
- General partners reported to include Saar Gur, Max Gazor, Murali Joshi, Reid Christian, Izhar Armony and Devdutt Yellurkar (verify current roster); no single managing partner publicly emphasised
- AUM / capital raised
- ~$4.3bn+ raised across ~20 funds by 2024 (reported); plus Fund XX (~$750m, 2025) for an estimated ~$5bn+ cumulative
- Stage focus
- Seed and Series A leads in software, infrastructure, fintech and consumer; Select funds for later rounds (scaled back in 2024)
- Signature investments
- Zendesk, Yammer, DoorDash (seed), Airtable, Vercel, Postman (reported), Cybereason (Series A), Sybase (early portfolio, reported); misses and failures: Odeo stake sold back before Twitter's value emerged, Pebble (insolvent 2016), Cybereason (sold 2025 well below peak)
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.
2005
Odeo
Series A
2009
Yammer
Early Venture
2009
Zendesk
Series A
2013
DoorDash
Seed
2013
Pebble
Series A
2014
Cybereason
Series A
2015
Airtable
Series A
2020
Vercel
Series B