Khosla Ventures to open first office outside Sand Hill Road — in New York
Venture capital firm Khosla Ventures will open its first office outside California this fall, choosing New York City. Partner Keith Rabois announced the move at a TechCrunch event.
Khosla Ventures, the venture capital firm long associated with Menlo Park, California, is opening its first-ever office outside Sand Hill Road this fall. Partner Keith Rabois confirmed the news Thursday night at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in New York's West Village.
The new office will be located on 14th Street in Manhattan, with an opening expected this fall, though Rabois cautioned that the timeline remains uncertain since the space is still being built out. He noted the move is particularly notable for Khosla Ventures, which doesn't even have an office in San Francisco.
A new way to engage portfolio companies
The New York office will house a handful of Khosla investors, but its most distinctive feature will be an "executive briefing center" — a space where, four days a week, the firm will bring together 10 to 12 portfolio companies at a time to meet with a Fortune 500 company. Rabois said these meetings help portfolio companies secure pilot programs and customers.
The announcement comes months after Rabois himself relocated to the East Coast to be closer to his husband, Jacob Helberg, the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, and their children, who are based in Washington, D.C.
At the event, Rabois also shared his views on talent availability in New York compared to the Bay Area. He said junior-level talent is abundant, pointing to fintech company Ramp as evidence, but recruiting senior engineers and executives is more difficult, largely due to long commutes from the suburbs where many senior professionals live.
Khosla Ventures joins other major Bay Area venture firms, such as Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, which already maintain a modest presence in New York. The move follows a recent CBRE report showing that New York has overtaken the Bay Area in total tech talent headcount for the first time in the 13 years the firm has tracked the data.
