John Johnston

John co-founded August Capital in 1995. Prior to that he served as a general partner with Technology Venture Investors (TVI) from 1988, and Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners (H&Q) from 1983 to 1988. During his venture career, John has invested in more than 25 technology companies, serving on more than 20 boards of directors.

From the mid-80s to the mid-90’s John’s primary focus was in software, where he was an investor in companies including Sybase (NYSE:SY), Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), Visio (NASDAQ: VSIO, acquired by Microsoft), Frame Technology (NASDAQ: FRAM, acquired by Adobe), Saros (acquired by Filenet), and Logic Automation (acquired by Synopsys).

Since the mid-90’s, John’s primary focus has been internet commerce and software as a service companies and he has been an investor in companies such as Postini (acquired by Google), Shopping.com (NASDAQ: SHOP, acquired by eBay), eShop (acquired by Microsoft), and Cygnus Solutions (acquired by RedHat).

In addition to his U.S. venture capital experience, John worked in Hong Kong for five years at a pioneering Asian venture capital firm, Inter-Asia Management Co., Ltd. (IAM). While at IAM, he participated in investments such as McDonald’s Restaurants (HK) Ltd. and Ikea Furniture (HK) Ltd., and was active as a board member in the management of several portfolio companies.

John received an AB in English from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard University. He is a past director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists.

Current Board Affiliations: Adchemy, Devicescape, Inrix, and Uptake

Previous investments: Cygnus Solutions (acquired by RedHat), Enuvis (acquired by SiRF), eShop (acquired by Microsoft), Frame Technology (acquired by Adobe), Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU), Logic Automation (acquired by Synopsys), Postini (acquired by Google), Saros (acquired by FileNet), Radlan (acquired by Marvell Semiconductor), Summit Microelectronics, Sybase (NYSE: SY), Valicert (acquired by Tumbleweed), Visio (acquired by Microsoft) and Xilinx (NASAQ: XLNX)