Satish Dharmaraj
Satish Dharmaraj | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Business leader, venture capitalist |
| Known for | General partner at Redpoint Ventures; founder and former CEO of Zimbra |
Satish Dharmaraj is a prominent American business leader and venture capitalist who holds the position of general partner at Redpoint Ventures. In the year 2024, he achieved the rank of #5 on the prestigious Midas List highlighting the top 100 venture capital investors. Prior to his tenure at Redpoint, Dharmaraj established Zimbra, a company he successfully sold to Yahoo! for $350 million in 2007.
Education and career
Dharmaraj earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree specializing in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. Additionally, he possesses both Bachelor and Master of Science qualifications in Computer Science, complemented by an executive management program completed at Harvard Business School. His earlier professional experience includes overseeing the messaging division at Openwave Systems and roles at Sun Microsystems as well as OneBox.
In 2003, he launched Zimbra and assumed the role of CEO, focusing on developing an innovative web-based email solution. The company secured investments from Benchmark, Redpoint, and Accel prior to its $350 million acquisition by Yahoo in 2007. While at Yahoo, Dharmaraj contributed to integrating third-party applications into the email platform. After departing Yahoo in 2009, he became Redpoint Ventures’ inaugural entrepreneur partner, concentrating on investments in business software, enterprise technologies, and infrastructure. His successful shift to venture capital influenced Redpoint’s approach to hiring partners with operational backgrounds.
Investments and acquisitions
Satish Dharmaraj has spearheaded investments in notable technology firms such as Snowflake, Infer, Sonos, Coin, Gogobot, Peel, Pure Storage, MapR, and Big Switch. A significant milestone came in 2014 when Acompli, backed by Dharmaraj’s firm Redpoint Ventures, was acquired by Microsoft for more than US$200 million. Similarly, Pulse was purchased by LinkedIn for an estimated US$90 million.
As an angel investor, Dharmaraj supported Posterous, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012. That same year, another initiative he developed, StorSimple, was also acquired by Microsoft. In 2011, he contributed to building Cloud.com, which was later acquired by Citrix Systems. The acquisition of Trip.com (formerly Gogobot) by CTrip occurred in 2017.
In 2012, Redpoint Ventures participated in a $60 million funding round for Zendesk ahead of its initial public offering. These strategic investments and exits underscore Dharmaraj’s emphasis on rapidly expanding enterprise and consumer technology sectors, utilizing his expertise to pinpoint scalable ventures and generate substantial returns.
Articles
Dharmaraj has authored articles including:
Video interviews
- "Entrepreneur-Turned-VC Satish Dharmaraj Speaks!" - The Wall Street Journal
- "Satish Dharmaraj on VC in Third World Markets" - TechCrunch
- "Satish Dharmaraj on Citrix’s Acquisition of Cloud" - The Huffington Post
- "Satish Dharmaraj on Businesses in Asia and Local Search’s Future" - TechCrunch
- "TC50 2009 Round 1 Judging Session" - TechCrunch
- "TC50 2009 Round 2 Judging Session" - TechCrunch