Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures is a private venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. Vinod Khosla founded it in 2004 with Samir Kaul and David Weiden after careers as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a general partner at Kleiner Perkins. The firm invests from seed through expansion stage across consumer and enterprise technology, financial technology, health, sustainability, and frontier fields such as artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and robotics.^[1][2]

Khosla Ventures began by investing its founders' own capital and later added institutional funds. An April 2025 investment memorandum from the New Jersey Division of Investment reported $16 billion in firm assets, more than 60 employees in a single Menlo Park office, and a three-vehicle structure comprising Seed, Main, and Opportunity funds.^[1] One of the firm's best-known investments is a $50 million investment in OpenAI in January 2019, which Khosla Ventures identifies as the first venture-firm investment in the company.^[2]

Quick facts

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Founding and development

Vinod Khosla earned an electrical-engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and an MBA from Stanford. After co-founding Daisy Systems, he co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and served as its founding chief executive. He joined Kleiner Perkins in 1986 and remained there until starting Khosla Ventures in 2004.^[2]

Public pension records describe Khosla Ventures as having been co-founded by Khosla, Kaul, and Weiden to invest their own capital in early-stage companies. The firm's move to outside limited partners became visible in 2009. Contemporaneous reports initially described $750 million for Khosla Ventures III and about $250 million for a seed fund. Final Form D amendments filed in January 2010, however, reported $1.0 billion sold for Fund III and $300 million sold for Khosla Ventures Seed. The later filings are the stronger record of the completed offerings.^[3]

The firm subsequently raised separate main and seed vehicles in recurring vintages. In 2021 it announced $1.4 billion across its Fund VII fundraising, followed in January 2022 by a $557 million first Opportunity Fund intended to support later rounds in maturing portfolio companies.^[4] A January 2023 New Jersey memorandum listed planned sizes of about $1.5 billion for Fund VIII, $400 million for Seed F, and $1 billion for Opportunity II. Later reporting described the round of fundraising as approximately $3 billion, with somewhat larger main and seed vehicles and a somewhat smaller opportunity vehicle.^[5]

Funds and fundraising

Khosla Ventures uses different vehicles for different levels of company maturity. Its published criteria say the Seed Fund supports early science or business experiments, sometimes as the sole institutional investor. The Main Fund covers more developed ventures and total financing rounds above $10 million. The Opportunity Fund targets companies with substantially reduced technology risk, established business economics, and a need to scale.^[6][7]

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The 2025 vehicles illustrate why fundraising targets should not be reported as completed fund sizes. An April pension memorandum estimated Fund IX at $2.0 billion to $2.1 billion, Opportunity III at $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, and Seed G at $750 million to $850 million. Form D notices filed on July 2 instead specified offerings of $1.95 billion, $1.25 billion, and $750 million, for a combined $3.95 billion. Each notice reported zero sold and marked the first sale as yet to occur on the filing date.^[1][8] Those records establish fundraising intentions, not a final close.

The same 2025 pension memorandum said the three funds expected to write equity checks of $1 million to $30 million across 100 to 200 companies. It described Fund IX as the vehicle for rounds requiring more than $10 million, Seed G as the vehicle for very early and "science project" companies, and Opportunity III as the expansion-stage vehicle for the firm's strongest companies.^[1]

Investment approach

The firm's published thesis emphasizes large problems that can be changed by technology and companies with defensible technical, business-model, or market advantages. Its current sector pages group investments into consumer, enterprise, fintech, frontier, medtech and diagnostics, digital health, therapeutics, and sustainability. AI appears across several of those categories rather than as a separate stage or fund.^[9]

At seed stage, the firm says it is willing to back incomplete teams and plans when the technical risk and potential economic benefit can be understood. Seed financing is expected to test a market assumption or remove an important technical risk at low cost. Main Fund decisions put more weight on market size, differentiation, execution, go-to-market plans, and remaining risks. Opportunity Fund decisions add evidence of repeatable economics, a team able to scale, and a plausible path toward profitability.^[6][7]

Vinod Khosla often explains this approach through the economics of rare outliers: many experiments can fail if a few successful companies create disproportionate value. In a 2025 essay about AI valuations, he argued that investors should not pay high prices indiscriminately, but that exceptional outliers could cover losses elsewhere in an AI portfolio. The firm's materials call its operating style "venture assistance," emphasizing company building and long-term help rather than a transaction alone.^[10]

High-risk technology and cleantech losses

The same risk tolerance produced notable failures during the first clean-technology investment cycle. Range Fuels closed its Georgia cellulosic-fuel plant in 2011 after receiving public grants and loans. KiOR, in which Khosla Ventures held a reported 28 percent stake, filed for bankruptcy in November 2014 after technical and economic problems at its Mississippi biofuel plant. The failures drew criticism that the companies had overpromised the readiness and economics of their technologies.^[11]

Khosla Ventures continued investing in sustainability and other capital-intensive fields. Its current portfolio records say it invested in solid-state battery developer QuantumScape in 2010 and Commonwealth Fusion Systems in 2018.^[12] These examples do not erase the earlier losses, but they show how the firm continued applying the same long-horizon approach across batteries, fusion, fuels, food, and materials.

AI strategy and the OpenAI investment

Khosla Ventures now treats AI as a general-purpose technology that can affect consumer products, enterprise software, health, manufacturing, and robotics. Its portfolio includes foundation-model research, developer tools, AI agents, health applications, and physical systems including humanoid robots. The firm also continues to invest in non-AI areas, so it is more accurately described as a multi-sector investor with a major AI practice than as a dedicated AI fund.^[1][9]

The central event in that strategy was the OpenAI investment. Khosla's official biography says he led a $50 million investment in January 2019 and that Khosla Ventures was the first venture firm to invest. The firm's OpenAI portfolio page also records 2019 as its investment year.^[2][13] In a 2025 interview, Khosla said the commitment was made in late 2018 or early 2019 despite the absence of a product, revenue, or conventional business plan. He also said it was the only investment for which he sent limited partners an apology letter explaining how unusual it looked.^[14]

Financial reporting later said the investment represented about 5 percent of OpenAI at the time, but OpenAI's unusual capped-profit structure and later financings make simple present-value calculations unreliable. The available public evidence does not support the baseline article's precise estimates of the original position's value in 2025 or 2026. Those estimates also fail to account transparently for dilution, transfers, changing security terms, or restructuring.^[15]

The investment became especially visible during OpenAI's November 2023 governance crisis, when Khosla publicly supported the return of Sam Altman as chief executive. In October 2024, a separate Khosla Ventures vehicle raised $405 million to participate in OpenAI's $6.6 billion financing. Reporting on its Form D noted that the vehicle pooled capital from outside investors, so the full $405 million should not be treated as Khosla Ventures' own balance-sheet investment.^[15][16]

Selected AI investments

The firm's current portfolio spans generative AI, application software, robotics, and health. The following transactions are examples rather than a complete list.

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Symbolica emerged publicly in April 2024 to pursue models based on structured mathematical reasoning. Contemporary reporting said it had raised $33 million in seed and Series A financing led by Khosla Ventures and described the work as an attempt to develop smaller and more interpretable reasoning systems.^[17] Replit's 2023 company announcement listed Khosla Ventures among participants in a financing led by Andreessen Horowitz's Growth Fund, with proceeds intended for its cloud and AI development products.^[18]

In April 2026, Factory announced a $150 million Series C led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital and other investors. Factory said the round valued it at $1.5 billion and would support its autonomous software-engineering platform. Its announcement describes the platform as model-agnostic and focused on multi-step, multi-agent workflows.^[19]

Broader portfolio

Khosla Ventures' portfolio is broader than its AI investments. The firm's records identify early investments in consumer, enterprise, fintech, health, space, energy, and materials companies. Representative investment years include the following:^[20]

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Several of these companies later entered public markets, but an investment year is not the same as an exit date or a realized return. The public portfolio pages do not provide enough information to calculate fund-level gains, distributions, or the amount retained after an initial public offering. Claims about exact cash proceeds or secondary-sale funding therefore require fund statements or transaction filings, not inference from company valuations.

Leadership

The firm's current team page lists five managing directors: Vinod Khosla, Samir Kaul, David Weiden, Keith Rabois, and Sven Strohband.^[21] Kaul and Weiden are founding partners. Kaul's published interests include AI, advanced technology, health, sustainability, and food; Weiden focuses on internet software and services. Strohband has led investments including GitLab and Rocket Lab. Rabois invests across sectors and stages and led the firm's first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm, and Faire.^[22]

Rabois first joined Khosla Ventures in 2013, left for Founders Fund in 2019, and rejoined Khosla Ventures in January 2024, according to the 2025 New Jersey memorandum.^[1] The current team page lists Adina Tecklu among the firm's investors rather than its managing directors; her profile says she invests in early-stage software, AI, and fintech.^[21][22] The baseline's references to Sven Strohband as current chief technology officer and Ethan Choi as a current partner were not supported by the current team directory and have been removed.

Disclosure and interpretation

Khosla Ventures is a private fund manager, so public information is uneven. Its website is useful for stated strategy, people, and portfolio dates, but it is also promotional material. Form D notices disclose exempt securities offerings, not audited fund closes or investment performance. Public pension memoranda provide stronger independent detail about proposed commitments, strategy, fees, and fund sizes, but their fund figures can be estimates and their performance tables can include unrealized valuations.^[1][8]

For those reasons, claims about assets, fund sizes, portfolio value, or investment performance should carry a date and identify whether the figure is a target, an offering amount, a reported close, or an estimate. The most defensible scale figure found for this article is the $16 billion in total firm assets reported by the New Jersey Division of Investment in April 2025.^[1]

See also

• Andreessen Horowitz
• Sequoia Capital
• Thrive Capital
• Monumental (construction robotics)

References

1. ^New Jersey Division of Investment. "Private Equity Investment in Khosla Ventures Seed G, L.P., Khosla Ventures IX, L.P. and Khosla Ventures Opportunity III, L.P." April 24, 2025. nj.gov/...Khosla.pdf
2. ^Khosla Ventures. "Vinod Khosla." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...vinod-khosla
3. ^U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Khosla Ventures III, L.P., Form D/A" and "Khosla Ventures Seed, L.P., Form D/A." January 21, 2010. sec.gov/...primary_doc.xml ; sec.gov/...primary_doc.xml ; Thomson Reuters and National Venture Capital Association. "Venture Capital Fundraising Activity Registers Second Consecutive Quarterly Decline in the Third Quarter of 2009." October 12, 2009. ir.thomsonreuters.com/...activity-registers-second ; Forbes. "Khosla Bucks VC Fundraising Drought." July 20, 2009. forbes.com/...apital-intelligent-technology-khosla
4. ^Hall, Christine. "Khosla Ventures debuts first opportunity fund." TechCrunch, January 6, 2022. techcrunch.com/...es-debuts-first-opportunity-fund ; Primack, Dan. "Exclusive: Khosla Ventures raises its first opportunities fund." Axios, January 6, 2022. axios.com/...s-raises-its-first-opportunities-fund
5. ^New Jersey Division of Investment. "Private Equity Investment: Khosla Ventures Seed F, L.P., Khosla Ventures VIII, L.P., and Khosla Opportunity II, L.P." January 18, 2023. nj.gov/...KhoslaVentures.pdf ; Metinko, Chris. "Khosla Ventures Nears $3B For Funds Even As Venture Slows." Crunchbase News, November 14, 2023. news.crunchbase.com/...a-ventures-funds-openai-dd2
6. ^Khosla Ventures. "How We Decide." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...how-we-decide
7. ^Khosla Ventures. "Opportunity Fund." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...opportunity-fund
8. ^U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Khosla Ventures IX, L.P., Khosla Ventures Seed G, L.P., and Khosla Ventures Opportunity III, L.P., Forms D." July 2, 2025. sec.gov/...primary_doc.xml ; sec.gov/...primary_doc.xml ; sec.gov/...primary_doc.xml
9. ^Khosla Ventures. "About: Imagine the Possible." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/about
10. ^Khosla, Vinod. "Are AI Valuations Bonkers?" Khosla Ventures, September 10, 2025. khoslaventures.com/...on-are-ai-valuations-bonkers ; Khosla Ventures. "Our Debut: Vinod Khosla." March 30, 2022. khoslaventures.com/...our-debut-vinod-khosla
11. ^Mufson, Steven. "Billionaire Vinod Khosla's big dreams for biofuels fail to catch fire." The Washington Post, November 28, 2014. washingtonpost.com/...11e4-9fb4-a622dae742a2_story
12. ^Khosla Ventures. "QuantumScape" and "Commonwealth Fusion Systems." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...quantumscape ; khoslaventures.com/...monwealth-fusion-systems-cfs
13. ^Khosla Ventures. "OpenAI." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...openai
14. ^Masters of Scale. "Investing in the age of AI, part 1, with Vinod Khosla." 2025. mastersofscale.com/investing-in-the-age-of-ai-part-1
15. ^Mathews, Jessica. "Vinod Khosla details how much his venture firm had on the line before Sam Altman's reinstatement at OpenAI." Fortune, December 4, 2023. fortune.com/...khosla-ventures-openai-sam-altman
16. ^Temkin, Marina. "Khosla Ventures just backed OpenAI with $405M more, but not necessarily with its own capital." TechCrunch, October 11, 2024. techcrunch.com/...necessarily-with-its-own-capital
17. ^Goldman, Sharon. "Vinod Khosla is betting on a former Tesla autopilot engineer who quit to build small AI models that can reason." Fortune, April 9, 2024. fortune.com/...-tesla-autopilot-engineer-ai-models
18. ^Replit. "Raising $97.4M at $1.16B Valuation to Expand our Cloud Services and Lead in AI Development." April 25, 2023. replit.com/...b-extension
19. ^Factory. "Factory raises $150M Series C." April 16, 2026. factory.ai/...series-c
20. ^Khosla Ventures. "Portfolio"; individual pages for DoorDash, Affirm, Instacart, GitLab, Guardant Health, Rocket Lab, QuantumScape, and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/portfolio ; khoslaventures.com/...doordash ; khoslaventures.com/...affirm ; khoslaventures.com/...instacart ; khoslaventures.com/...gitlab ; khoslaventures.com/...guardant-health ; khoslaventures.com/...rocket-lab ; khoslaventures.com/...quantumscape ; khoslaventures.com/...monwealth-fusion-systems-cfs
21. ^Khosla Ventures. "Team: Venture Assistance." Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/team
22. ^Khosla Ventures. Team profiles for Samir Kaul, David Weiden, Keith Rabois, Sven Strohband, and Adina Tecklu. Accessed July 28, 2026. khoslaventures.com/...samir-kaul ; khoslaventures.com/...david-weiden ; khoslaventures.com/...keith-rabois ; khoslaventures.com/...sven-strohband ; khoslaventures.com/...adina-tecklu