Khosla Ventures

About

Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and former general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ¹². Khosla seeded the firm with his own personal capital; the first two investment vehicles were not open to institutional investors ³. The firm’s third fund, Khosla Ventures Fund III, was the first to accept outside limited partners and raised approximately $1 billion ⁴.

Vinod Khosla left Kleiner Perkins in part to pursue more experimental, high-risk investments that the established firm’s partnership structure made difficult — what he has called willingness to fund “imprudent science experiments” ¹. At Kleiner Perkins, Khosla had incubated Juniper Networks (which generated a reported 2,500x return) and was involved with Cerent Corporation (acquired by Cisco for $7.2 billion in 1999) ².

The firm has grown substantially. In November 2021, Khosla Ventures raised $1.4 billion across its funds, including Khosla Ventures VII at approximately $1.06 billion ⁵. In January 2022, the firm raised $557 million for its first-ever Opportunity Fund ⁶. In November 2023, the firm closed $3.1 billion across three funds: $1.6 billion for its eighth flagship fund, $500 million for a seed fund, and $900 million for a growth fund — a significant increase from the $1.4 billion raised in 2021 ⁷⁸. In February 2025, the firm began raising $3.5 billion across three new funds, 17% larger than the 2023 raise ⁹. As of 2024, the firm manages approximately $16 billion in assets under management ¹⁰.

In February 2024, Keith Rabois returned to Khosla Ventures as a managing director after departing Founders Fund ¹¹. Rabois had previously been at Khosla Ventures, where he led the firm’s first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm, and Faire, and invested early in Stripe ¹². His return gave the firm a presence in Miami.

In October 2024, Khosla Ventures raised a $405 million special purpose vehicle to invest in OpenAI ¹³. The firm was the first institutional venture investor in OpenAI, investing $50 million in 2019 at a $1 billion valuation — what Vinod Khosla called “the largest initial bet I’ve made in 40 years by a factor of two” ¹⁴¹⁵.

The firm operates three fund strategies: a Seed Fund for earliest-stage investments, a Main Fund for Series A and growth-stage companies, and an Opportunity Fund for later-stage follow-on investments ¹⁶. Khosla Ventures describes its approach as “venture assistance” rather than traditional venture capital, emphasizing deep operational involvement with portfolio companies ¹⁶¹⁷.

The firm ranked #1 in the Founder’s Choice VC Rankings in 2023, a survey of over 200 venture capital firms where founders anonymously evaluate investors on their cap table ¹⁸.

As of February 2026, Khosla Ventures has invested in approximately 710 companies, with 51 unicorns, 32 IPOs, and 151 acquisitions ¹⁰. The firm’s current team includes approximately 58 people across four functional categories: Managing Directors, Investors, Operators, and Platform ¹⁹.

Stated Thesis

Khosla Ventures publicly describes its mission as investing in “bold, early, impactful ventures” ¹⁶. The firm’s stated motto is “bold, early and impactful,” emphasizing high technical risk with large potential impact ¹⁷.

Vinod Khosla has described the firm’s philosophy as “venture assistance” rather than venture capital: “Our firm and I am much more focused on how you build a company, not on returns. If we build the big successful company, then the returns take care of itself. So returns come second. Building something of significance comes first” ¹⁷.

The firm explicitly seeks “black swan” opportunities — high-impact innovations that appear contrarian or impossible to most investors ²⁰. Khosla has described this as “option-value investing”: “I don’t mind a larger probability of failure, with sufficient diversification in each fund. When we succeed, it has to be worth it” ²⁰.

On risk tolerance, Khosla has stated: “To me, if there’s a 90% chance of failure and there’s a 10% chance of changing the world, that’s a pretty good deal” ¹⁷. He has also said: “Venture capital is interesting because you can only lose one-time your money. If you can make 50-times your money and only lose one time, that’s a pretty good deal” ²⁰.

The firm states it looks for “unfair advantages”: proprietary and protected technological advances, business model innovations, unique partnerships, and top-notch teams ²⁰. Khosla has emphasized that “experts are experts in a previous version of the world, not the world you’re trying to create” ¹⁷.

On team building, Khosla has said: “The single most important thing I spend time on, probably more than any other single thing in my calendar, is helping our companies recruit” ¹⁷. He views team as paramount: “The team you build is the company you build, not the business plan you make” ¹⁷.

Khosla has also been publicly critical of most VCs: “Most VCs haven’t done shit to know what to tell startups going through difficult times,” and has claimed that “some percentage substantially larger than 95 percent” of VCs do not add value to their portfolio companies ²¹.

Inferred Thesis

The following analysis is based on 163 portfolio companies listed on Khosla Ventures’ website ²², categorized by the firm’s own sector labels. With approximately 710 total investments per Crunchbase ¹⁰, this represents roughly 23% of the full portfolio — the publicly highlighted portion, which likely skews toward the firm’s most notable investments.

Sector Allocation (computed from 163 verified portfolio entries on KV website)

• Enterprise / AI / Software: 35 companies (21%) — Cognition, Sakana, Replit, Nutanix, Neon, Distyl, Glean, ClickHouse, GitLab, Rubrik, ThoughtSpot, Okta, RingCentral, Cylance, Vectra, Fireflies.ai, PolyAI, Athena, Chipstack, Parallel, Sarvam AI, Aleph, Basis, DualEntry, Spellbook, Loti, Point One Nav, Astrus, Sketchpro, and others
• Sustainability / Climate / Energy: 21 companies (13%) — Commonwealth Fusion, Fortera, Impossible Foods, QuantumScape, Mainspring, LanzaTech, Blue River, Glydways, Hertha, Nitricity, Mazama, Mariana, Enzymit, Realta, Redoxblox, Spiritus, Ceibo, Caelux, Leaft, TerraAI, RTV
• Digital Health: 18 companies (11%) — Sword Health, Limbic, Abridge, AliveCor, Curai Health, Headspace Health, HelloHeart, Oscar Health, Rightway, Rad AI, Tortus AI, Bold, Vista AI, Radical Health, Gather Health, C the Signs, Abby, Ellipsis Health
• Consumer / Retail: 15 companies (9%) — OpenAI, DoorDash, Instacart, Eight Sleep, Faire, Inkitt, Opendoor, Honey Homes, Rosebud, Somnee, Splash, Playback, Proclaim, Outsmart College, Vero Biosciences
• Fintech / Payments: 12 companies (7%) — Block (Square), Stripe, Affirm, Ramp, Upstart, Fundbox, Aven, Imprint, AtBay, Roofstock, Worldcoin, UpAndUp
• Frontier / Aerospace / Defense: 14 companies (9%) — Rocket Lab, Waabi, Hermeus, Physical Intelligence, Mach Industries, Varda, Windborne, Vayu, Sagence, Nomagic, FieldAI, Zetwerk, Symbolica, Skybox
• MedTech / Diagnostics: 11 companies (7%) — Ultima Genomics, Opentrons, Guardant Health, Inflammatix, Karius, Synchron, Flow Neuroscience, Overture Life, Science, Vitara, Pearl Bio
• Therapeutics / Biotech: 10 companies (6%) — Vivodyne, Stylus Medicine, Loyal, Somite, Moonwalk Bio, Everyone Medicines, Liberate Bio, eGenesis, Rubedo Life, Cellino
• Other (miscellaneous consumer, AI): 27 companies (17%)

Stage Distribution

Based on Crunchbase data ¹⁰: Khosla Ventures has made 269 Series A investments (38% of counted investments), 194 Seed investments (27%), 128 Series B investments (18%), with the remainder at Series C and later stages. The firm is primarily a Series A investor, though its seed fund gives it significant early-stage presence.

Average round sizes: Seed at $9.53M, Series A at $15.7M, Series B at $36.6M ¹⁰.

Geographic Concentration

The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and the portfolio is overwhelmingly US-based, with concentrations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Notable exceptions include international investments such as Waabi (Toronto), Sarvam AI (India), PolyAI (London), and C the Signs (UK).

Check Size

The firm operates across a wide range: seed investments average approximately $9.5M (larger than typical seed checks), Series A investments average $15.7M, and the Opportunity Fund enables larger follow-on investments ¹⁰. Vinod Khosla has described the early approach as: “We don’t do ten 20-million-dollar investments. We do ten one-million-dollar investments” — though check sizes have grown substantially as fund sizes have increased ²⁰.

Investment Volume

Khosla Ventures has averaged approximately 40 new investments annually over the last decade, with 101 investments in 2025 alone ¹⁰. This is a high-volume approach compared to many venture firms of similar fund size.

Co-Investor Patterns

Based on the six Seedlist startup profiles where Khosla Ventures appears as a co-investor (Okta, Stripe, DoorDash, Instacart, Square, OpenAI), frequent co-investors include Sequoia Capital (4 overlaps), Andreessen Horowitz (3 overlaps), SV Angel (4 overlaps), and Kleiner Perkins (3 overlaps). The firm frequently co-invests with top-tier venture firms at Series A and later stages.

Notable Gaps Between Stated and Actual Thesis

• Deep tech emphasis is genuine: Unlike many firms that claim “deep tech” focus, Khosla Ventures’ portfolio shows substantial investment in genuinely capital-intensive, science-heavy companies: nuclear fusion (Commonwealth Fusion), solid-state batteries (QuantumScape), rockets (Rocket Lab), autonomous vehicles (Waabi), and gene editing. The stated willingness to accept “a 90% chance of failure” is reflected in the portfolio.
• AI concentration is massive and growing: While the firm lists AI as one of several focus areas, the recent portfolio is overwhelmingly AI-focused. Of the 163 highlighted companies, the majority of recent additions (2022-2026) are AI companies across every vertical — AI for health, AI for enterprise, AI for legal, AI for code, AI infrastructure.
• Consumer is understated: The firm lists “consumer” as a focus area but does not emphasize that some of its largest outcomes (DoorDash at $72B IPO, Instacart, Square/Block) were consumer or consumer-adjacent businesses.
• Cleantech has declined as a share: The firm was historically known for aggressive cleantech bets (many of which failed in the 2008-2012 era). Sustainability remains in the portfolio (13% of highlighted companies) but is no longer the dominant thesis it once was, having been overtaken by AI and enterprise.
• Healthcare is a genuine pillar: At 24% of the highlighted portfolio when combining digital health, medtech, and therapeutics (29 + 11 + 10 = 50 companies… recalculating: 18 + 11 + 10 = 39 companies = 24%), healthcare represents the firm’s second-largest sector after enterprise/AI. This is more prominent than the stated thesis suggests.

Portfolio

The following table includes companies from the Khosla Ventures portfolio page ²², supplemented by additional sourced entries. This represents approximately 23% of the firm’s ~710 total investments.

Note: This table includes 66 of the approximately 163 companies listed on Khosla Ventures’ portfolio page, focusing on the most notable and well-sourced entries. Investment years use the company’s founding year as a proxy where the specific investment date is unknown, marked with “~YYYY (founded)”. Khosla Ventures has invested in approximately 710 companies total per Crunchbase ¹⁰; this table represents approximately 9% of the full portfolio.

In Their Own Words

Vinod Khosla on building companies vs. returns:

“Our firm and I am much more focused on how you build a company, not on returns. If we build the big successful company, then the returns take care of itself. So returns come second. Building something of significance comes first.” ¹⁷

Vinod Khosla on risk tolerance:

“To me, if there’s a 90% chance of failure and there’s a 10% chance of changing the world, that’s a pretty good deal.” ¹⁷

“I don’t mind a larger probability of failure, with sufficient diversification in each fund. When we succeed, it has to be worth it.” ²⁰

“My willingness to fail is what has allowed me to succeed.” ¹⁷

Vinod Khosla on recruiting:

“The single most important thing I spend time on, probably more than any other single thing in my calendar, is helping our companies recruit. Great team.” ¹⁷

“The team you build is the company you build, not the business plan you make.” ¹⁷

Vinod Khosla on founders:

“Great founders have great vision, passion, unreasonableness, more ambition than most practical people would accept as possible or doable.” ¹⁷

Vinod Khosla on experts and innovation:

“Experts are experts in a previous version of the world, not the world you’re trying to create.” ¹⁷

Vinod Khosla on VC industry:

“Most VCs haven’t done shit to know what to tell startups going through difficult times.” ²¹

Vinod Khosla on the OpenAI investment:

“I made the largest bet by a factor of two of any initial investment I’ve made in 40 years.” ¹⁵

Vinod Khosla on portfolio construction:

“We don’t do ten 20-million-dollar investments. We do ten one-million-dollar investments.” ²⁰

Vinod Khosla on learning:

“I read a lot. From scientific papers on polymer construction to fusion reactors and cancer research.” ²⁰

Vinod Khosla on impact:

“Everything we can imagine technologically, we can invent.” ²⁰

What Founders Say

Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nutanix and DevRev:

“In 2011, KV made a big bet on us when Nutanix was still a pre-revenue company that many thought was a ‘science project.’ Everyone is your friend when times are good, but it’s never all smooth sailing and KV stood by me in the toughest of times. Standing by you while continuously pushing you to greatness is why I will always come back to work with them.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Virgilio Bento, Founder and CEO of Sword Health:

“KV believed in us when few would and didn’t care about where we came from or who we knew, being only focused on what we had built. In a world where everyone chases the next bubble and has a sheepish behavior, that’s truly special.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Helmy Eltoukhy, Co-founder and CEO of Guardant Health:

“KV backed and believed in us when we had more naysayers than supporters.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Jagdeep Singh, CEO of QuantumScape:

“The thing I love most about KV is how they are not afraid of making big, contrarian bets, as long the team is world class and has done their homework. They seek out these types of opportunities, and these are the kinds of bets that change entire industries.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Nikki Pechet, Co-founder and CEO of Homebound:

“KV thinks impossibly big but also digs deep into the weeds to understand real risks.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Raquel Urtasun, Founder and CEO of Waabi:

“KV is the Ferrari of deep tech.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Peter Beck, Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab:

“With KV, they understand that when building rockets, hardware failures set you back.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech:

“KV believed in our bold idea and was a critical partner in helping us create a post-pollution world.” (Source: Khosla Ventures website) ¹⁶

Note: All founder quotes above are sourced from Khosla Ventures’ own website, which is a biased source — these are the firm’s selected testimonials. No independently sourced founder testimonials were found during this research pass despite dedicated searches. The firm’s #1 ranking in the 2023 Founder’s Choice VC survey ¹⁸ provides independent validation of founder satisfaction, but individual independent quotes were not located.

Sources