Floodgate Fund
| Company type | Venture fund |
|---|---|
| Industry | Finance |
| Founded | March 2010 (as Floodgate Fund)[1] |
| Founder |
|
| Website | floodgate |
Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm based in the United States created by Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura-Ko. It was originally named Maples Investments, but was renamed Floodgate Fund in March 2010.[1] It is focused on investments in technology companies in Silicon Valley.
Investments
[edit]_@_SXSW_2017_(33547017445).jpg)
In October 2021, Floodgate raised $146 million for its seventh fund. In previous years, their sixth fund closed at $131 million, their fifth fund closed at $76 million, the fourth fund closed at $75 million and their third fund at $73.5 million.[2]
Floodgate has invested in a number of companies[3] including Twitter, Digg, location-based services company Gowalla, professional networking service BranchOut,[4][5] Chegg, Formstack, Milk Inc.,[6] TaskRabbit,[7] self-storage marketplace SpareFoot,[8] and seasteading platform company Blueseed.[9]
As of 2017, they've also invested in Lyft, Refinery29, LabDoor, education startup MissionU, legal discovery startup, TextIQ, Okta[10] and Rappi.[2] Floodgate was also an early investor in Applied Intuition, a software company for autonomous vehicles.
Pattern Breakers
[edit]In July of 2024, Mike Maples Jr and co-author, Peter Ziebelman, published the best-selling book, Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-ups Change The Future. Based on extensive research and real-world examples, the book upends accepted wisdom about how to achieve outlier success when launching a start-up or creating a new product. The book introduces new concepts like "Inflection Theory" and "Stress Tests", both of which are foundational to Floodgate's investment philosophy.
Media coverage
[edit]Floodgate Fund and Mike Maples have been covered in TechCrunch[1] and Forbes.[11] Mike Maples of Floodgate was also interviewed about his investment philosophy by Sarah Lacy for TechCrunch TV.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Arrington, Michael (2010-03-24). "Mike Maples Goes Pro As A Venture Capitalist, Launches FLOODGATE". TechCrunch.
- ^ a b "Floodgate closes sixth fund with $131 million – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 2 March 2017. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
- ^ "Companies". Floodgate. Archived from the original on 2012-12-03. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ Schoenfeld, Erick (2010-09-17). "Facebook Job-Hunting App BranchOut Raises $6 Million From Accel And Super Angels". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ Klein, Julie (2011-05-11). "Deals & More: BranchOut grabs $18M to help you job hunt on Facebook". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ Lacy, Sarah (2011-04-26). "Milk Completes $1.5 Million Angel Round, Packed with Valley Names". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ Tsotsis, Alexia (2011-05-04). "TaskRabbit Gets $5M From Shasta Ventures, First Round And Others To Help People Get Stuff Done". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ "FLOODGATE Backs SpareFoot". 2011-03-08. Retrieved 2013-08-13.
- ^ Banister, Cyan (2012-12-13). "Mike Maples Gets On Board Blueseed's Sea Platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-13.
- ^ "Okta unveils $50M in-house venture capital fund". TechCrunch. 2019-04-03.
- ^ Cohan, Peter (2012-12-11). "How Mike Maples, Jr. Became One Of Silicon Valley's Great Investors". Forbes. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
- ^ Lacy, Sarah (2011-03-08). "Mike Maples: Why I Don't Go for the Flip and the Three Deals that Got Away (TCTV)". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-12-14.
