Money men have an image of being serious and dull, so I was pleased, and amused, to see an article from one big US Venture Capital firm, listing the big successful companies that they passed on the chance to invest in.

Their site says:
Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest venture capital firm, carrying on an unbroken practice of venture capital investing that stretches back to 1911. This long and storied history has afforded our firm an unparalleled number of opportunities to completely screw up.

The list of missed opportunities includes: Google, eBay, FedEx, Compaq, Intel, Paypal and Apple.

Interestingly, the biggest of those missed opportunities came when one of the firm's partners, David Cowan, tried to avoid even hearing the pitch from Google....
Cowan’s college friend rented her garage to Sergey and Larry for their first year. In 1999 and 2000 she tried to introduce Cowan to “these two really smart Stanford students writing a search engine”. Students? A new search engine? In the most important moment ever for Bessemer’s anti-portfolio, Cowan asked her, “How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?”

In How to be an Entrepreneur I talk about the tendency for successful entrepreneurs to be 'Open' - that is that they are constantly looking to meet new people and eager to hear new ideas. And I think the story of how Bessemer Ventures missed being an early investor in Google is an excellent example of why this is a good attitude to have!

It also provides us with two other reassurances:

  1. If you get turned down for funding by one source of finance, it doesn't necessarily mean that your idea is bad - just keep trying other funders until you get the right result.
  2. Bessemer Ventures is still going strong after nearly 100 years - so it doesn't matter if you don't grab every single opportunity that comes your way, there will be others.

Congratulations to them for having a sense of humour and being prepared to be frank about their mistakes, as well as for having done so well for so many years.

Hat-tip: I heard about this page via Venture Voice