Company Overview
Highlights
Tries to limit the number of investments that it makes, so that it can spend time and energy providing postinvestment assistance to its portfolio companies.
Focuses on software and Internet services, computing and communications, semiconductors, life sciences, and energy and materials.
MDV Management Company, operating as Mohr Davidow Ventures, is a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments, primarily in IT startups. Mohr Davidow prefers to take an active role in the companies in which it invests. After investing in a company, Mohr Davidow provides hands-on help in three areas: strategy development, management-team recruiting, and strategic-partner development. The firm also offers its portfolio companies workshops in areas such as marketing, product design, and employee benefits. Two of the firm’s partners are well-known authors of business books: Bill Davidow wrote Marketing High Technology and cowrote Total Customer Service and The Virtual Corporation. Geoffrey Moore wrote Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, and Living on the Fault Line. In 2003, Mohr Davidow was the first firm to shrink its fund (MDV Fund VII), setting off a wave of similar activity among other firms. In 2005, MDV closed its eighth fund at $400 million. Successful investments include Agile Software, Brocade, ONI Systems (acquired by Ciena), Pivotal Technologies, and Rambus. In 2006, Mohr Davidow invested in the development of the world’s largest factory for making solar power cells.