What stage does Clearstone Venture Partners invest at?

Clearstone Venture Partners invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.

What sectors does Clearstone Venture Partners focus on?

Clearstone Venture Partners focuses on Data & Infrastructure, Enterprise Software, Fintech, Marketplaces.

Where is Clearstone Venture Partners located?

Clearstone Venture Partners is headquartered in Santa Monica, US.

Does Clearstone Venture Partners lead rounds?

Yes, Clearstone Venture Partners leads investment rounds.

Clearstone Venture Partners

Venture capital

Santa Monica · Pre-Seed–Series A · 7 people tracked

Also known as Cedarstone Advisors · CLEARSTONE VENTURE MANAGEMENT SERVICES, L.L.C

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Investment thesis

Clearstone positions itself as an early-stage lead investor backing founders and teams building technology companies. Its focus areas include fintech and payments, enterprise technologies, and data-driven marketplaces. The firm has enabled large US institutions to participate as early investors in emerging innovations, and points to a track record of $650 million invested over three funds, resulting in 9 IPOs and nearly a dozen M&A exits.

Invests inData & Infrastructure Enterprise Software Fintech MarketplacesSanta MonicaUnited States

Source: firm website, verified Aug 3, 2026.

Stage

Pre-Seed–Series A

Santa Monica, CA, US

Leads rounds

Leads

Instruments

Equity

AUM

$650M

VC funds

Team · 7 people

from public directories

Bill Elkus· Managing Partner· Park City, Utah, United Statesin

Bill Elkus founded Clearstone Venture Partners in 1997 and serves as Managing Member of its General Partners. He has held board and observer positions at companies including PayPal, Overture, United Online, and several others, with Clearstone Fund I ranking first among approximately 700 funds evaluated by CalPERS in 2011 by internal rate of return. Elkus holds a JD from Harvard Law School and both an MS in Management and BS in Mathematics from MIT, and began his career at Boston Consulting Group before founding Nathan Todd & Company, an investment advisory firm managing over $600 million.

William Quigley· Managing Partner

Anil Patel· Venture Partner· San Mateo, California, United Statesin

Anil Patel is a Partner in the Other Bets Portfolio at Alphabet, where he focuses on corporate development and venture capital investing. His background spans corporate innovation management, venture and growth investments at both the GP and LP levels, mergers and acquisitions, software development for large-scale financial and imaging systems, and legal counsel for growth-stage companies. His investment expertise covers AI, software and cloud infrastructure, frontier technology, life sciences, internet infrastructure, e-commerce, enterprise systems, mobile computing, and digital media.

Prabakar Sundarrajan· Venture Partner𝕏

T.M. Ravi· Venture Partner· Palo Alto, Californiain 𝕏

Co-founder and Managing Director of The Hive, a serial entrepreneur who has started over 25 startups and was founder & CEO of Mimosa Systems, Peakstone Corporation, and Media Blitz. He held marketing leadership roles at Iron Mountain, Computer Associates, and Cheyenne Software, and holds an MS and PhD from UCLA and a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur.

t•••@hivedata.comreveal

Vish Mishra· Venture Partner· Menlo Park, California, United Statesin 𝕏

Vish Mishra is a venture capitalist at Clearstone Venture Partners since 2002, where he has participated in investments generating over $10 billion in market value across notable companies including PayPal, BillDesk, VeloCloud, and Rubicon Project. With 47 years in Silicon Valley and 40 years of technology industry leadership spanning software, internet, telecommunications, and healthcare, he serves as chairman of Sunshine in Interaction and holds or has held board positions at multiple technology companies. Mishra is active in philanthropic and community engagement efforts, including leadership roles with The Indus Entrepreneurs Silicon Valley, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, and the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship at San Jose State University.

Jim Armstrong· Californiain 𝕏

Jim Armstrong is founder and managing director of Context Venture Partners, a venture growth fund focused on mature, middle-market companies. He has been recognized multiple times on Forbes' Midas List and has invested across enterprise and consumer technology companies, including early-stage positions in PayPal, NetZero, and CarsDirect. Armstrong previously co-founded March Capital and Clearstone Venture Partners, was a partner at idealab Capital Partners, and began his venture career at Austin Ventures in 1995; he holds a BA in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from the McCombs School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Fund performance · per public LP disclosures

as of Jun 2025

Fund	Vintage	Committed	Net IRR	TVPI	DPI
Clearstone Venture Partners III-A, L.PLPs: California State Teachers' Retirement System, The Regents of the University of California	2004	—	8.2%	2.79x	2.07x

Source: public limited-partner disclosures (CalPERS, CalSTRS). Net IRR / TVPI / DPI as reported by the limited partner; a fund's early-year IRR is an interim estimate (J-curve).

Frequently asked questions

What stage does Clearstone Venture Partners invest at?: Clearstone Venture Partners invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
What sectors does Clearstone Venture Partners focus on?: Clearstone Venture Partners focuses on Data & Infrastructure, Enterprise Software, Fintech, Marketplaces.
Where is Clearstone Venture Partners located?: Clearstone Venture Partners is headquartered in Santa Monica, US.
Does Clearstone Venture Partners lead rounds?: Yes, Clearstone Venture Partners leads investment rounds.

Media · Podcasts & interviews

featuring the team

- Startups - William Quigley, Clearstone Venture Partners

This Week in Startups · William Quigley

Co-investors · 17

Sequoia Capital

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$4.4M – $214M

Founders Fund

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$500K – $5M

Benchmark

Benchmark is a venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco and Woodside that invests in early-stage startups.

$100K – $30M

Bling Capital

Bling Capital is a seed-stage venture firm that backs entrepreneurs seeking to find and scale product-market fit, supported by its Bling Product Council of over 100 product leaders.

$1M – $5M

Bonfire Ventures

Bonfire Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm that backs founders reinventing how business operates, leading seed rounds in AI-native B2B software.

$2M – $4M

Hack VC

Hack VC is a thesis-driven venture capital firm that partners with founders at the earliest stages building next-generation Internet technologies across crypto, AI, and other frontier areas.

$3M

BAM Ventures

BAM Ventures is an early-stage investment firm made up of experienced entrepreneurs based in Southern California, backing founders building consumer-focused technologies, products, and services that transform commerce.

$100K – $1M

March Capital Partners

March Capital is an early-growth venture capital firm investing in frontier technology companies focused on the AI revolution, partnering with founders to build category-defining businesses.

Tribeca Venture Partners

Tribeca Venture Partners is a New York-based venture capital firm that backs early-stage founders using emerging technologies to build category-defining companies.

$1M – $15M

Crosscut Ventures

Crosscut Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that has backed founders across industries and geographies since 2008.

$250K – $750K

Silverton Partners

Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Texas that partners with founders long-term, having backed 75+ portfolio companies with 30+ acquisitions and 4 IPOs.

$200K – $2M

Miramar Venture Partners

Miramar Digital Ventures is a seed and early-stage venture firm backing founders leveraging smart connected sensors, big data, and intelligent machines to drive disruption.

$100K – $3M

▶5 more co-investors

Act One Ventures The Perkins Fund Morpheus Ventures Triangle Peak Partners Unicorn India Ventures

Firms observed investing alongside Clearstone Venture Partners, from public investor directories. Shared companies are the overlap with Clearstone Venture Partners's recorded portfolio.

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