Mary Meeker and three partners are leaving Kleiner Perkins to form a new firm; sources describe clashes between early and late stage groups at Kleiner Perkins
Meeker is leading an exodus in a huge split at one of Silicon Valley's most famous firms. — Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second high-profile partner exodus from Kleiner Perkins in recent years: general partner Matt Murphy departed in 2015, and last year the firm shut down its KPCB Edge seed program after all three partners running it left. Now Mary Meeker — the firm's best-known name — is exiting with three partners, and sources point to friction between the early-stage and late-stage groups as the fault line.
The split matters because it cleaves Kleiner along stage lines rather than just losing talent: the departing group is expected to raise its own growth fund, while what remains of Kleiner tilts back toward early stage. Both sides' subsequent fundraises became the test of whether each franchise could stand alone.
First-order effects
- Kleiner Perkins loses its growth-stage franchise overnight — Meeker and three partners take their deals, brand, and presumably LP relationships to a new firm.
- Limited partners who backed Kleiner's growth strategy must now choose between following Meeker into the new vehicle or staying with a smaller, early-stage-focused Kleiner.
Second-order effects
- Meeker's fundraising becomes the referendum on her personal brand: sources report she is targeting roughly $1.25B for a standalone growth fund, sized against the growth book she built inside Kleiner.
- Kleiner is forced to re-prove itself without its marquee name — its first post-departure vehicle was a $600M fund focused on seed through Series B, confirming the retreat to early stage that the internal clashes foreshadowed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, large multi-stage firms increasingly split along stage lines, with star growth investors spinning out branded vehicles rather than coexisting with early-stage teams under one roof.
- LP allocation follows the split: capital that once pooled in one diversified firm gets divided between an early-stage specialist and a founder-led growth shop, reshaping how a single Silicon Valley franchise competes across stages.
The trend: Multi-stage venture firms are fracturing by investment stage, with star partners like Mary Meeker taking their growth franchises out as independent firms while the remaining partnership refocuses on early stage.