Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Greylock Partners
One of the oldest continuously operating US venture partnerships — a Boston firm founded in 1965 by an alumnus of Georges Doriot's ARD that reinvented itself as a Silicon Valley enterprise-software and consumer-network franchise, best known for the Facebook Series B, LinkedIn, Workday, Palo Alto Networks and Airbnb, and for running as an equal partnership with no founder-owner.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1965, Boston, Massachusetts
- Founders
- Bill Elfers (formerly of American Research & Development under Georges Doriot) and Dan Gregory; Charlie Waite joined in the early years
- Headquarters
- Menlo Park, California (Sand Hill Road), with a San Francisco office; the original Boston/Cambridge office was wound down in the 2010s and the firm is now Bay Area–centred
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; historically run as an "equal partnership" in which general partners shared economics broadly rather than in a founder-weighted pyramid; no outside owner, no listed vehicle
- Leadership (2026)
- No single CEO-style managing partner publicly emphasised. Long-tenured partners include Reid Hoffman (joined 2009), David Sze, Asheem Chandna, Jerry Chen, Saam Motamedi and Mike Duboe; Bill Helman and Aneel Bhusri are long-time partners with reduced day-to-day investing roles (roster changes in 2025–26: verify)
- AUM / capital raised
- Not formally disclosed; flagship funds of ~$1bn each since 2013, implying cumulative commitments of several billion dollars across Greylock XIV–17 (reported); total historical capital raised reported in the ~$5bn+ range
- Stage focus
- Seed and Series A/B lead investing in enterprise software, cybersecurity, infrastructure, AI and consumer/marketplace companies; frequent incubation of companies inside the firm; occasional growth participation
- Signature investments
- Facebook (Series B lead, 2006), LinkedIn (Series B lead, 2004), Workday (founding investor, 2005), Palo Alto Networks (Series A, 2005), Airbnb (Series A lead, 2010), Figma, Discord, Docker, Abnormal Security, Pure Storage, Tumblr, Dropbox (participant); disappointments or instructive outcomes include Docker's 2019 restructuring, Inflection AI's 2024 acqui-hire by Microsoft, Adept's 2024 talent deal with Amazon and Neeva's 2023 wind-down
10 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2004
LinkedIn
Series B Lead
2005
Palo Alto Networks
Series A
2005
Workday
Founding Investment
2006
Facebook
Series B Lead
2010
Airbnb
Series A Lead
2013
Figma
Seed and Series B Lead
2014
Docker
Series B Lead
2016
Discord
Early Round Lead
2018
Abnormal Security
Incubation and Series A
2022
Inflection AI
Incubation and Seed