Jim Goetz is an American venture capitalist and entrepreneur who is a partner with Sequoia Capital.
11 Facts About Jim Goetz
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In 2017, Jim Goetz announced he was stepping back from his leadership duties with Sequoia, but continues to invest and represent the firm on company boards.
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Jim Goetz became a vice president at Bay Networks, then left in 1996 to co-found a software company, VitalSigns.
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Jim Goetz joined Sequoia Capital in 2004, where he has focused on mobile and enterprise startup investments.
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Jim Goetz has been ranked on the Forbes Midas list of top 100 venture capitalists, and occupied the top spot each year from 2013 to 2017.
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In 2015, Jim Goetz was named "VC of the Year" at the Crunchies award show, hosted by the publication TechCrunch.
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Major investments by Jim Goetz leading to IPOs have included Ruckus Wireless and Palo Alto Networks in 2012, Nimble Storage and Barracuda Networks in 2013, and HubSpot in 2014.
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Notable acquisitions from Jim Goetz investments have included AdMob, acquired by Google for $750 million in 2009, Clearwell Systems, acquired by Symantec for $410 million in 2011, Appirio's acquisition by Wipro for $500 million in 2016, and GitHub, acquired for $7.5 billion by Microsoft in 2018.
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Sequoia's stake, led by Jim Goetz, returned $3.5 billion on an approximate $60 million investment.
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In January 2017, Jim Goetz stepped back from his day-to-day management role as one of the firm's three "stewards", transitioning this role to Roelof Botha, and other duties associated with Sequoia's US venture business to Alfred Lin.
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Jim Goetz said at the time that he would continue to make investments and represent Sequoia on boards, but would turn his attention to other projects.