For more than 20 years, Paul Holland has been a venture capitalist at Foundation Capital in Palo Alto, California. He joined in 2001 as a general partner and served in this capacity for 20 years. He then transitioned to a position as general partner emeritus. Over time, he has invested in several companies, generating about $18 billion in market capitalization. Paul Holland has also represented Foundation Capital on the boards of companies like Chegg, Coverity, and Mobilelron.
Paul Holland is deeply involved in his industry. He is the former president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (2008 to 2010) and co-executive produced Something Ventured, a critically acclaimed documentary on the early years of venture capital. He has appeared on CNBC, NBC, CNN, and Fox dozens of times to discuss startup topics, been featured on business publications like Bloomberg and Fortune, and served as a guest lecturer on entrepreneurship at universities like Harvard Business School, Wharton, and Columbia.
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Paul Holland was the SVP of sales and global operations at Kana Communications. He worked alongside Mark Gainey to grow the company to over $140 million in sales, supporting an initial public offering of over $9 billion. Previously, he served as vice president of European operations at Pure Software. He worked alongside Reed Hastings to grow the startup globally, leading to its sale to IBM for over $1 billion. He holds an MBA from UC Berkeley.