Sutter Hill Ventures

Sutter Hill Ventures is one of the oldest venture capital firms still in operation, founded in 1964 by Bill Draper and Paul Wythes as an offshoot of a real estate firm and originally licensed as a Small Business Investment Company. Based in Palo Alto, California, the firm is famously low-profile and invests in technology-based startups across enterprise and infrastructure software, networking and computer technology, cloud, security, business and financial services, and healthcare. Its distinctive model is venture-studio-style company building: Sutter Hill originates only one or two companies a year, often incubating them in-house and embedding a partner as founding operator, then selectively backs a few other investments, exemplified by Managing Director Mike Speiser serving as Snowflake's founding CEO from 2012 to 2014 after leading its $5M Series A. The firm runs an evergreen structure in which the partners invest their own capital alongside LPs with no fixed fund life, and acts as a lead investor. It is led by Managing Directors including Mike Speiser, Stefan Dyckerhoff (founder of Nicira, acquired by VMware for $1.26B), Jim White, Keith Loebner and Divanny Lamas. Across decades Sutter Hill has backed more than 200 companies, with legendary outcomes including Snowflake, the largest software IPO ever, where the firm held over 20% worth roughly $12.6 billion; Pure Storage; Sumo Logic; Lacework; NVIDIA; and, more recently, Jony Ive's AI-hardware startup io, acquired by OpenAI for $6.5 billion in 2025. Its patient, builder-led approach has made it one of Silicon Valley's most enduring firms.