About Bessemer

Bessemer Venture Partners is a private venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Massachusetts, China, and India. It has backed such companies as Ciena, Flarion, Parametric Technologies, Skype, Staples, VeriSign and Veritas. Over 100 Bessemer companies have gone public, including American Superconductor, Ciena, Gartner Group, Ingersoll Rand, International Paper, Maxim, Parametric, Perseptive Biosystems, Staples, VeriSign, Veritas, and W.R. Grace.

Bessemer Venture Partners is the longest-standing venture capital practice in the United States. Between 1911 and 1975, the team operated as part of Bessemer Securities Corporation, established in 1911 to invest Henry Phipps's share of the proceeds from the sale of Carnegie Steel. Since then, Bessemer Venture Partners has operated as a standalone partnership with Bessemer Securities Corporation as its primary limited partner.

Bessemer Venture Partners is widely known for its [http://www.bvp.com/port/anti.asp anti-portfolio], a light-hearted retrospective by the firm's partners describing why they mistakenly passed on the Series A rounds of now successful companies.