David Cowan Biography

In the world of venture capitalists, David Cowan is a legend. Since he became part of Bessemer Venture Partners in 1992, the company has enjoyed 45 early stage investments all thanks to him. Of the 45 investments, 19 of them were put up for sale to the general public. An additional 18 were sold to public companies. In the first edition of Forbes’ ranking list of the best dealmakers, Forbes Midas List, he was ranked among the top 10 venture capitalists in the world and he was on the list for 14 years between 2001 and 2018.

He is a technology speaker and his various areas of investments have been known to include network technology, internet services, and consumer internet (Ciena P-Com, PSI-Net Keynote FlycastNetli, and HotJobs Blue Nile respectively).

Verisign was co-founded by him in 1995 as a spinoff from RSA Security and a Bessemer-funded divestiture. He was the company’s initial Chairman. In the business of data security, he has made a wide range of other investments including Counterpane (sold to BT) Cyota (sold to RSA) ON (sold to Symantec) Postini (sold to Google) Qualys Tripwire Tumbleweed Valicert and Worldtalk (both of which were sold to Tumbleweed after they went public).

He holds Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and his Master of Business AdministrationDegree (M.B.A.) degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science respectively from the University.

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