Kleiner Perkins and the next big thing

July 22, 2008 | By Jim Kim

In some ways, you could call Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers the Goldman Sachs of the venture capital industry. The storied firm has long defined excellence, and is associated with some of the great start-ups in recent memory, like Genentech, Netscape, Amazon and of course Google. (I was tempted to call it the Google of the VC industry). But as the VC industry stands at a turning point, Kleiner Perkins is ready to make a bold move. Fortune reports it is leaving the Internet behind in search of billions in the inchoate green tech industry, specifically alternative energy firms. Kleiner Perkins' $500 million Green Growth Fund launched in May. This is a small fund compared with the funds raised by leveraged buyout shops, but it represents a huge bet, and one that the industry will watch carefully. You get the feeling this is the beginning of the something grand, or the end.

For more:
- here's the Fortune article