Roelof Botha

 ( 1973 Births ) 

Roelof Frederik Botha (born 19 September 1973) is a South African-American actuary, venture capitalist and company director.

Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital and as of 2022 sits on the boards of MongoDB, Evernote, Bird Global, Natera, Square, Unity, and Xoom Corporation. He also worked with AssureRX, FutureAdvisor, Instagram, Mixpanel and Mu Sigma. Roelof Botha profile . Sequoia Capital. He previously sat on the board of directors of Meebo and YouTube before they were each acquired by Google, Weebly before they were acquired by Square, and Tumblr before they were acquired by Yahoo!. He previously sat on the boards of 23andMe, Eventbrite, Jawbone, Mahalo, Nimbula, TokBox, and Whisper.

On Forbes Midas List, an annual ranking of venture capital professionals, he ranked 22nd in 2008, 9th in 2021, and 36th in 2022.

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Education and career Botha was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and at the age of six he moved to Cape Town with his parents. He was raised in Hout Bay, a suburb of Cape Town, and attended Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck. Botha earned a BSc in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1996. He worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Co. in Johannesburg from 1996 through 1998. He then moved to the United States, where he received an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

In 2000, prior to his graduation from Stanford, Botha became director of corporate development for PayPal. He moved on to vice-president of finance and was named CFO in September 2001. PayPal went public in February 2002, and was purchased by eBay in October 2002. Meg Whitman offered Botha the opportunity to stay on as CFO post-acquisition, but Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz, who had invested in PayPal and served as a board member, offered him a partnership, which he accepted in January 2003.

At Sequoia, Botha oversaw the firm's investment in YouTube, Instagram, and Block (formerly Square), among others. He also helped to plan the acquisition of Xoom Corporation by PayPal. In 2017, Botha took over lead responsibility for Sequoia's US operations from Jim Goetz. In April 2022, Sequoia announced that, starting in July 2022, Botha would replace Doug Leone as Senior Steward of Sequoia's global brand and operations.

Botha has led or co-led Sequoia's investments in several early and growth stage companies. As of 2022, his active investments include Ethos, Evernote, GenEdit, Landis, mmhmm, Pendulum, Skiff, Temporal Technologies, and The Org.

On October 9, 2023, Botha became chairman of the board of directors at Unity Technologies.

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Family 's father, also named Roelof, is an economist. His uncle was the rock musician Piet Botha. His grandfather was Pik Botha, a South African politician who served as the country's last foreign minister under the Apartheid government, and the first minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs under Nelson Mandela. Roelof is married to Huifen Chan and they have a daughter named Saskia Botha and a son named Bosman Botha.

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External links

• Roelof Botha Bio, Sequoia.

Categories: 1973 Births, Living People, Actuaries, Afrikaner People, Alumni Of Hoërskool Jan Van Riebeeck, Paypal People, People From Pretoria, South African Businesspeople, South African Investors, American People Of South African Descent, South African Venture Capitalists, Stanford Graduate School Of Business Alumni, University Of Cape Town Alumni

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