Forbes Came Out With the 100 Midas List of Tech Investors of 2011

Forbes Magazine, one of the most read financial magazines worldwide, has announced its 100 Midas List for 2011. The 100 Midas List is a list of one hundred investors who are in the tech industry and have had the largest ROI in the previous year. Many of these investors invest in innovative tech companies who are primarily startups and have increased their value to investors over five fold.

Investors who are listed in the 100 Midas List are primarily venture capitalists and angel investors who invest either seed capital or early stage companies and have increased their ROI along with the ROI of the company’s other investors as well.

Some of the top 10 of the Forbes 100 Midas List include Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners, Peter Fenton of Benchmark Capital, Scott Sandell of New Enterprise Associates, Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners, Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund, Peter Barris of New Enterprise Associates, David Sze of Greylock Partners, and Marc Andreesen of Andreesen Horowitz. These investors have made the top ten of the Forbes 100 Midas List, since these investors have produced the largest ROI on the investments for their firms.

The first on the top ten is Jim Breyer of Accel Partners. Accel Partners is a world class venture capital firm which has offices in the United States, London, China, and India. Jim Breyer has been an investor with Accel Partners for quite some time and also leads a rather eccentric life. Besides being an avid collector of contemporary art and also enjoys fine wines, travel, and a wide range of music that range from classical all the way to new age rock, like Nirvana.

Mr. Breyer has also brought deep investing experience to Accel Partners. He graduated first from Stanford University with a B.S. degree. He then went on to graduate from Harvard University with an MBA, where he made the top five percent of his class. Mr. Breyer’s investment experience includes investing in the largest discount store chain, Wal-Mart, where he currently sits on their board of directors. Other investments that Mr. Breyer has made for Accel Partners include Actuate, Agile Software, Hyperion Solutions, Oracle, and more. Forbes named Mr. Breyer number one on the 100 Midas List because of how successful his investments have been. As mentioned in Forbes Magazine, whether Mr. Breyer invests in a hoody clad college dropout or some kind of off the wall comic book company, he seems to turn to gold everything he touches.

Besides being a venture capitalist for Accel Partners, Mr. Breyer is also an angel investor and has invested a large chunk of his personal funds, which he has also turned into record profits.

The second in the Forbes 100 Midas List is Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. Sequoia Capital is an early stage venture capital firm which primarily invests in companies who are in the energy, financial services, healthcare services, mobile, outsourcing services, and tech industries. The firm primarily invests $100,000 to $1 million in seed capital and $1 million to $10 million in series A early stage capital. Mr. Moritz joined Sequoia Capital in 1986 and primarily invests in companies who are in the outsourcing services, internet, and tech industries. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital, Mr. Moritz has worked for Time Warner, where he held several key management and executive positions. Along with working in key management at Time Warner, Mr. Moritz is also the founder of Technologic Partners.

Forbes named Mr. Moritz number two in the 100 Midas List because he was an early investor in some of the biggest internet companies of today, which are Google, Yahoo, and Paypal. Mr. Moritz also led the investment in Pure Digital, which was later acquired by Cisco for $590 million. Mr. Moritz also played a key role in the largest internet shoe and apparel vendor, Zappos.com, where he still plays a key role in turning the rubber soles of Zappos gym shoes into gold.

The third in Forbes Magazine’s list of 100 Midas List is Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners. Greylock Partners was founded in 1965 and has invested in over 100 companies. The firm has gone global with offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Menlo Park, California; Herzliya, Israel; Bengalore, India; and London, England.

Coming to Greylock in 2009, Mr. Hoffman has deep experience in the consumer internet industry and has had many successful investments in companies which cover a broad span of the consumer internet industry, including social gaming, mobile and social networking, online payment solutions, and many others to name a few. Prior to coming to Greylock, Mr. Hoffman is one of the cofounders of Linkedin, the world’s largest professional social network. He also played an influential role in the founding of Paypal and also played an instrumental role in Paypal’s acquisition of Ebay. Mr. Hoffman also led the partnerships of Paypal with Visa, Mastercard, and Wells Fargo.

Forbes Magazine named Mr. Hoffman number three in the 100 Midas List, because he has become known as the “elder statesman of Silicon Valley.” Mr. Hoffman has basically created the entire internet social network environment and his investments have made the social networking industry one of the most lucrative in the 21st Century.

There are many more achievements that all the top ten investors have accomplished, as well as all 100 of the Midas List. If you want to find out more about the Forbes 100 Midas List of 2011’s top tech investors, click here.