Tim Draper quickly became one of the most prominent figures in cryptocurrency when he purchased 30,000 BTC (worth $19 million at the time, nearly $2 billion today) when the U.S. seized Silk Road assets.
Although many in the cryptocurrency world may have been introduced to Tim Draper through his involvement in the space, his prominence came long before the age of blockchain.
Tim Draper comes from a long of venture capitalists, the third in a familial line of Drapers.
He graduated with a BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1980 and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984.
Draper started his own venture capital firm in 1985, where former colleague John H.N. Fisher became a partner in 1991 along with Steve Jurvetson. As of 2015, Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s core funds have raised more than $5 billion, which has been invested in over 300 companies. DFJ is also one of the most active investors in the space sector.
It is commonly assumed that Draper and Jurvetson are the inventors of “viral marketing”, born out of their idea to automatically attach a short advertising message to outgoing Hotmail emails in 1996.
Draper is known for his early-stage investments in Skype and other unicorn and rhino companies. His father, Bill Draper, was an earlier investor in the peer-to-peer video platform, and DFJ invested in Skype in 2004. In 2005, Skype was sold to eBay for $4.1 billion. DFJ owned 10% of Skype at the time of the sale.
Skype, along with investments in Tesla, SpaceX, Hotmail, Baidu, and Coinbase, have propelled Tim Draper into venture capital fame over multiple generations.
In 2013, Draper left DFJ and announced he would continue investing through his personal fund, Draper Associates, and would help his son run an incubator.
On June 27th, 2014, Draper purchased 30,000 bitcoins (estimated to be worth around $19 million at the time) from the US Marshals’ seizure of the Silk Road assets. At the peak of Bitcoin’s price in 2017, his purchase was worth nearly $600 million.
Tim Draper is well-known for his advocacy and support of Bitcoin. On January 27th, 2015, Draper bet around $400,000 that Bitcoin would recover from its recent drop. Fast-forward more than three years, and it’s clear he put his money on the right horse.
Draper University
Tim Draper launched Draper University in San Mateo, California, as a full-time, immersive educational program that serves as a crash course for entrepreneurs all over the world to get onboarded to the various skill sets required to start a startup.
Draper University claims to have helped launch 280+ startups that have raised over $51.4 million in funding.
Draper University Blockchain Intensive
In late 2017, Draper University introduced the Draper Blockchain Intensive, a course focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency. This course is one of the first of its kind and has attracted the attention of hundreds of entrepreneurs and business leaders from around the world.
This four-day blockchain crash course aims to onboard business leaders in enterprise organizations to better understand blockchain, the current blockchain landscape, and the many opportunities that arise from the blockchain revolution. The schedule caters to the development of a high-level understanding of blockchain and how it can be integrated into various industries.
The course includes events such as fireside chats with Tim Draper himself, blockchain architecture and technical details, integration of blockchain into existing back office models, the regulatory environment, the ICO landscape, and blockchain-focused venture capital. All of these sessions are led by qualified experts in the field.
Final Thoughts
Tim Draper’s success thus far in the blockchain investment and venture capital world has helped build him into one of the most influential figures in the cryptocurrency world from the venture capital space.
You can follow Tim Draper on his Twitter.
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