Sequoia Partner And WhatsApp Backer Jim Goetz Tops Forbes Midas List

Forbes released its annual Midas List today, which ranks the top venture capitalists by returns and more (you can check out the complete methodology here). Topping the list was Sequoia Capital’s Jim Goetz, who has backed WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook for $19 billion), Nimble Storage and Palo Alto Networks among others.

Marc Andreessen took the No. 2 spot (as he did last year), followed by Benchmark’s Peter Fenton in the third spot, Founders Fund’s Peter Thiel in the fourth spot, Accel Partners’ Jim Breyer — who took the first spot on last year’s list — in the fifth spot, and Sequoia’s Doug Leone in the six spot.

Others who made the top 10 include Greylock’s Reid Hoffman, Baseline’s Steve Anderson, Meritech’s Paul Madera, and NEA’s Scott Sandell.

Sequoia also dethroned Accel Partners for the most investors on the list and for the top overall VC firm, with nine partners on the list, which earned the firm an in-depth profile (last year Kleiner Perkins and John  Doerr were profiled). Aside from Goetz and Leone, Michael Moritz, Alfred Lin, Roelof Botha, Neil Shen, Michael Goguen, Bryan Schreier and Kui Zhou all made the list.

Forbes reports that Sequoia’s XI Fund, which raised $387 million in 2013, has seen $3.6 billion in gains. Partners will collect $1.1 billion in those gains, and LPs will collect $2.5 billion. Sequoia Venture XIII (2010) is up 88 percent a year, and XIII and Venture XIV (2012) will split the $3 billion generated from the $19 billion WhatsApp exit.

Accel had 8 partners on the list (Forbes notes that with the loss of Theresia Gouw, technically the firm has seven active partners), KPCB had five partners, and Greylock has four partners, along with Benchmark, Meritech, and NEA. Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, Bessemer and DFJ all had three partners make the list.

Forbes said there were only 19 new names to the list this year, down from 25 in 2013. Newcomers included Insight Venture Partners Deven Parekh, Accel’s Kevin Comolli and Ryan Sweeney, Sequoia’s Goguen and Schreier, Oak Investment Partners’ Ann Lamont, Felicis Ventures’ Aydin Senkut, Maveron’s Dan Levitan, Social+Capital Partnership’s Mamoon Hamid, Sherpa’s Shervin Pishevar, SV Angel’s David Lee, KPCB’s Randy Komisar, and Jeff Crowe from Norwest Venture Partners. Something interesting to note — eight out of 19 newcomers are based outside of the Bay Area.

Similar to last year, there were only a handful of women who made the list: KPCB’s Mary Meeker (No. 21), Lamont (No. 46), Gouw (No. 98), and GGV’s Jenny Lee (No. 52).

Photo Credit/Forbes