# WR Hambrecht + Co.

WR Hambrecht + Co. is a Private Equity based in San Francisco, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Private Equity
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Founded:** 1998
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** hambrechtcapital.com
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/wr-hambrecht---co

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

WR Hambrecht + Co. is a full-service investment bank with headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Tokyo. The firm specializes in the OpenIPO auction process. WR Hambrecht + Co. has underwritten companies such as Google and Interactive Brokers, and has financial backing from investors including American Century, Crimson Ventures, and Fidelity Ventures. The firm has made 53 investments and 20 portfolio exits.

## Sectors

- Enterprise Software
- FinTech
- Consumer Discretionary
- AI/ML

## People

- William R. Hambrecht — Co-Founder
- Tom Kinnally — Managing Director

## Questions

### Who runs investment decisions at WR Hambrecht + Co.?

Bill Hambrecht, the firm’s co-founder, is the central investment decision-maker. He is supported by a small team of managing directors, including Tom Kinnally, who has been with the firm for over two decades. The team operates with a consensus-driven approach common to lean, principals-led venture platforms.

### Is WR Hambrecht + Co. a venture capital fund or an investment bank?

It functions as a venture-investment platform with deep roots in the investment-banking firm WR Hambrecht + Co, which Hambrecht founded in 1998. The venture arm invests directly in private companies, often on a deal-by-deal basis with co-investors, rather than operating a traditional blind-pool fund. The original broker-dealer and its OpenIPO auction system have been separate from the venture portfolio.

### How does the firm source its investment opportunities?

Deal flow comes largely through Bill Hambrecht’s personal network, built over six decades in technology banking—from taking Apple public in 1980 to pioneering the Google Dutch auction. The firm also sources through its co-investor relationships with other venture funds, family offices, and executives across the technology sector.

### What is the firm’s known stance on taking public-market companies?

Bill Hambrecht’s OpenIPO platform—the Dutch-auction system used for the 2004 Google IPO—was built on the idea that companies and their existing shareholders, not banks, should capture more of the value created at an IPO. The venture platform’s strategy reflects that philosophy: it looks for companies where a non-traditional path to public-market liquidity, or a differentiated understanding of that process, can influence outcomes.

## Related profiles

- [WRF Capital](https://altss.com/profile/wrf-capital)
- [Wright Partners](https://altss.com/profile/wright-partners)

---

Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/wr-hambrecht-co

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology