Tim Draper Net Worth, Crypto and NFT Investments

Tim Draper is an American venture capital investor. He’s a third generation of a lineage filled with venture capitalists and government officials. His family background gave him a launchpad to create a niche for himself in the industry. Tim Draper is a founding partner of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Alongside this firm, Tim Draper also found Draper University, Draper Venture Network, Draper Associates, and Draper Goren Holm, thereby contributing to his current net worth.

Despite being a venture capital investor, Tim Draper made his fortunes from Bitcoin. In 2014, he bought 29,656 bitcoins confiscated by U.S. Marshals Service from the Silk Road black market for $18.7 million. In breakdown, each Bitcoin is worth just $632 per coin. He invested in top projects like Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, DocuSign, Coinbase, Robinhood, Ancestry.com, Twitch, Cruise Automation, PrettyLitter, and Focus Media. More so, he’s famous as one of the early investors of Theranos.

Most publications often refer to Tim Draper as the mastermind of the term “Viral Marketing.” Though the term had been in existence for a while. Their claims mainly refer to how Draper invested in Hotmail after meeting Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia. However, he coined the idea of automatically attaching a brief advertising message to the bottom of outgoing Hotmail emails.

According to Forbes, the estimated net worth of Tim Draper is $1.2 billion. His Bitcoin holding contributed the most to his present net worth. However, his ability to identify promising companies in their early stages also aided Tim Draper’s Journey to the billionaire group. Also, he is a vocal advocate for emerging technologies such as blockchain and cryptocurrency. In the past, Tim Draper made numerous comments and predictions about the price of BTC.

Tim Draper’s Net Worth

Early Life

Timothy Cook Draper was born into the family of Phyllis and William Henry Draper III on June 11, 1958. His ancestry is dominated by politicians and business venture investors. His father founded Draper & Johnson Investment Company. Also, his father was the former chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Meanwhile, his grandfather, William Henry Draper Jr., founded Draper, Gaither, and Anderson in 1958. Likewise, William Henry Draper Jr. served as the first ambassador to NATO. Another notable figure from Tim Draper’s lineage is his elder sister, Polly Draper. Polly Draper made a name for herself on a different scene. She’s widely known as an actress.

Draper attended Phillips Academy Andover. Thereafter, he moved to Stanford University, bagging a BS in electrical engineering in 1980. During his time at Stanford, he worked at Hewlett-Packard as a marketing engineer. He served in this capacity as an intern.

Young Draper took a bold step from his family’s shadow to make a name for himself. He made national headlines while at Stanford University when he created the popular campus board game “Stanford – The Game.” He crafted the game alongside Heidi Roizen, who was also a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

However, in 1984, he diverted to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School. After graduating from the School, he joined the popular Investment Bank Alex. Brown & Sons in 1985. He later left the bank to start his venture capital firm. In 1991, he collaborated with Former colleague John H.N. Fisher. Subsequently, another business student Steve Jurvetson became the third partner in the firm in 1994.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)

Having cut his teeth at Alex. Brown & Sons, Tim Draper established the Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) in 1985. Six years later, John Fisher joined him and eventually, Steve Jurvertson in 1994. DFJ focuses on investments in enterprise, consumer, and disruptive technologies. Presently, the investment firm has assets worth $5 billion under its management.

After its creation in 1985, Tim Draper through the firm, and its partners invested in more than 300 portfolio companies. These companies include Tesla, AdMob, Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Solacity, Sisense, Coinbase, Unity, and Skype. The investment firm operates in a unique way. DFJ collaborates with companies at the seed, early, and growing stages. As a result of these collaborations, the firm hopes to build iconic and lasting businesses.

Additionally, another investment system of the firm is the “DFJ Growth.” In this system, the firm invests in private technology companies that are addressing huge market opportunities. These companies pose pointers of growing swiftly. However, Tim Draper left the firm in 2013, leaving John Fisher to pilot the affairs of the organization.

After his departure from the organization, Tim Draper announced he will continue investing through an early-stage venture fund Draper Associates V. Part of his announcement includes plans to support his son in running an incubator. After his departure, DFJ grew rapidly. The firm emerged as one of the six largest and most active investors in the industry. It is worth mentioning that the success attained by DFJ contributed to the net worth of Tim Draper.

Draper University

Tim Draper changed direction to invest in the educational sector in 2011. To actualize this goal, Tim Draper purchased the Hotel Benjamin Franklin building in San Mateo, California. After the acquisition, he established the Draper University using the Hotel Benjamin Franklin structure. The university is widely known as Draper University of Heroes. In its inaugural session, the University had 40 students, growing from strength to strength. Presently, the firm offers Fall, Spring and Summer programs for both students as well as executive education for CEO’s and governmental officials.

The University gained more media attention in 2015 after it featured a reality program, Startup U. With that, the University featured the show for its seven-week program in a 10-episode series. The show included Miss USA 2013, Erin Brady. Though Erin Brady’s presence on the show was to help find investors for her company, Romeo in a Box.

In another collaborative effort, Draper University formed a partnership with Arizona State University and Global Silicon Valley in May 2016. The collaboration birthed the launching of an entrepreneurial initiative themed ASU Draper GSV Accelerator that consisted of Draper’s innovations in education with Arizona State University’s curriculum and large student body. Accordingly, the program incorporates the Draper University entrepreneurial boot camp with a league of scholars.

In 2015, six students from Arizona State University won scholarships to attend the program in 2015. Ever since, Draper University and Arizona State University have collaborated on numerous occasions. In 2017, the two institutions collaborated to offer 15 college credits and a certificate of entrepreneurship for the Fall program. Tim Draper’s investment in the educational sector inspired him to write some books. In 2017, Draper published “How to be The Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Aspiring Entrepreneurs.” Thereafter, published “When a Venture Capitalist Enters California’s Political Matrix: Innovation Meets the Status Quo.”

Draper Goren Holm

Alongside Alon Goren and Josef Holm, Tim Draper founded Draper Goren Holm in 2018. The firm is fintech focused, with a stern interest in incubating and accelerating early-stage blockchain startups. The firm has participated in various events across the blockchain and crypto space. Also, Draper Goren Holm provides consulting services “that are lightning rods to quality deal-flow and a testament to our execution and access.”

In addition, the firm is strategic with its investment system. It considers the background quality of a project’s team before investing in such an initiative. Another factor in attracting investment from Draper Goren Holm is the ability of the project to provide game-changing innovations in the crypto and blockchain space. The firm provides support for selected projects by offering them the gateway to leverage its network of collaborations.

Draper Goren Holm gains its strength from the league of entrepreneurs it has connected in the industry. Banking on its strength, the firm has created numerous startups to explore opportunities in the industry together. Late last year, the firm alongside other investment ventures in the crypto space invested $14 million for Dogamí. The project is based in Paris, France. It provides Web3 games for NFT pet companions. Dogamí offers 12,000 unique virtual NFT companions, which are divided into four rarity tiers. So far, the project has unveiled Fifteen Dogamí breeds which include the popular Shiba Inu, Corgi, and Australian Shepherd.

Political Contributions

Tim Draper attracted huge media attention in 2014. Then, he filed a petition with the California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen. With the petition, Tim Draper aimed to collect signatures that will see California divided into six smaller states. The petition came into play as part of his advocacy that Carlifornia is too big to be governed. Tim Draper couldn’t get enough signatures compelling the move to hit a stumbling rock. Consequently, the petition couldn’t land on the 2016 ballot.

Two years later, the push surfaced again with a different dimension. This time, he intended to push the idea that California be divided into three smaller States. However, the advocacy attracted stern scrutiny with many criticizing Tim Draper for wanting to manipulate the process for partisan gains. Nevertheless, the petition collected a satisfactory number of signatures to qualify as an initiative in the 2018 general election. It suffered another setback just a day before the ballots were printed. The California Supreme Court blocked the petition and it failed to appear on the November 2018 ballot.

Investment Portfolios

Tim Draper is notable for his investments in several projects which have impacted his net worth. One of his investment portfolios is Tezos. The project runs as an open-source blockchain network. It has the capacity to process P2P transactions. The platform has a native token, tez. Draper’s investment could be traced to 2017. Then, he announced an undisclosed investment in the project in return for its native token. With this investment in Tezos, he became the first influential personality to embrace the initial coin offering trend.

Draper leveraged his firms, “Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network” to invest in a lot of projects. Some of the projects that have received the backing of the billionaire celebrity include Coinbase, Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, Focus Media, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, Theranos, PTC and many more. According to our findings, DFJ owns 10% shares in Skype at the time it was sold to eBay in 2005.

Is Tim Draper Pro Bitcoin?

We can confirm that Tim Draper is a proven supporter of cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin. He believes in the superiority of decentralized crypto over centralized assets. According to him, “decentralized crypto like bitcoin, tezos, bitcoin cash, aragon aardano are way better than centralized crypto,” Draper said. “I don’t know why anyone is still holding centralized crypto, unless it has a specific purpose like XRP or ETH. You would think that FTX/FTT would have taught that lesson.”

Draper has never hidden his admiration for BTC. In recent times, he leveraged several platforms to promote the crypto. The influential billionaire wants to encourage the global adoption of Bitcoin, describing the token as investors’ best bet. In one of his interviews in 2023, Draper tipped businesses to hold two payrolls worth of cash in BTC and other crypto assets as a hedge against emerging inflation. According to him, “Bitcoin is a hedge against a ‘domino’ run on the banks and on poor over-controlling governance.”

As part of his commitment to spread the gospel of Bitcoin, Tim Draper paid a surprise visit to Sri Lanka’s central bank headquarters in February 2023. When he got there, he tried to convince the apex bank on the need to adopt crypto as a means of fighting corruption. Dressed in a Bitcoin tie, Draper met the Governor of the bank, Nandalal Weerasinghe, urging him to consider crypto adoption in the country like El Salvador.

In his speech, the crypto evangelist said “I come to the Central Bank with decentralized currency. A country known for corruption will be able to keep perfect records with the adoption of Bitcoin.” In his response, Weerasinghe ruled out the possibility of Bitcoin adoption in the country. According to the Governor, “adoption of 100% Bitcoin won’t be a Sri Lanka reality ever. We don’t want to make the crisis worse by introducing Bitcoin.”

Meanwhile, Draper didn’t allow Weerasinghe’s frosty response to impact his stance about the token. He has never doubted the potential of Bitcoin to dominate the future financial arena.

In one of his interviews, Draper was quoted saying; “I think Bitcoin continues up because there are only 21 million of them. By virtue of its code, only 21 million bitcoin can be mined. Give it about a year and a half and retailers will all accept Bitcoin.” The billionaire crypto optimist has always encouraged investors to patronize Bitcoin, describing the token as the Microsoft and AmazonI of the crypto space.

It is worth mentioning that Draper started his Bitcoin evangelism from his home. In April 2023, he explained his role in the adoption of Bitcoin by his dynasty. According to the billionaire, his love for the token provided a pathway for his family to subscribe to it. Although, our findings show that his father, Bill Draper is skeptical about crypto and has warned his son to stick to the U.S. dollars. But, Tim Draper’s sons are crypto bulls.

Tim Draper’s Contributions to the Web3 Space

Certainly, Tim Draper has, over time, contributed to the growth of web3. Just like he is doing with cryptocurrencies, Draper wants to foster mainstream adoption and popularity of the web3 arena. In recent times, he has supported projects that are geared towards onboarding users into the sphere. In 2023, he led a funding round for a web3 email firm, EtherMail. According to our findings, the firm raised $4 in funding from the round. His investment also earned him a membership role in the firm’s advisory board.

Tim Draper has also leveraged his firm, “Tim Draper’s Venture Network” to explore the web3 arena. In January 2023, the firm announced its entry into web3 after unveiling its web3 syndication vehicle. According to our findings, the vehicle is designed to primarily enable new investors to join the Draper Ecosystem. In reaction to the launch, Draper said: “The world of investing is changing rapidly. We are expanding access for investors so that the best entrepreneurs, wherever they are, can get funded.”

Crypto and NFT Holdings of Tim Draper

As a notable Bitcoin bull, Tim Draper has a billion-dollar crypto portfolio. Although there is no credible information about the exact value of his crypto holdings, we rely on his 2021 statement that he holds an appreciable amount of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Tezos (XTZ), Ripple (XRP), and Aragon (ANT), Ethereum (ETH) and a few more. Our findings traced Draper’s investment in Bitcoin to around 2010, making him one of the earliest investors in the crypto. By 2011, he owned 40,000 BTC but lost the assets to the crash of Mx.Gox, a notable crypto exchange at that time.

Draper did not allow the incident to discourage him. A few years later, he purchased 30,000 BTC valued at $19 million at that time. No wonder he made the list of the most famous Bitcoin investors across the globe. Unfortunately, the assets were seized by the U.S. marshalls from the Silk Road. Still, Tim Draper has continued to actively invest in Bitcoin, thereby aiding his net worth. In recent times, the billionaire tipped the token to attain a $250,000 value. If this happens, it is not in doubt that the net worth of Tim Draper will grow significantly.

Guess billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper’s #BTC projection… pic.twitter.com/pzua5Ly6A5

— David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) November 18, 2022

Apart from Bitcoin, Draper also holds a significant amount of ANT tokens in his portfolio. His investment in the crypto project started in 2021 when he gave $1 million to its founder, Aragon in exchange for 1 million ANT tokens. This represents 2.5% of the total supply of the token.

He is also an active investor in Tezos, a renowned blockchain network. In 2015, he invested an undisclosed amount into its “initial coin offering.” This thus means the billionaire held and might still be holding tez, the native token of the project in his portfolio. While commenting on his participation in the offering, Draper said “the best thing I can do is lead by example. Over time, I actually feel that some of these tokens are going to improve the world, and I want to make sure those tokens get promoted as well. I think Tezos is one of those tokens.” It is worth mentioning that the said project has amassed more than $230 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum since its inception.

However, there are no indications that Tim Draper holds NFTs. No credible publication has been able to confirm if the billionaire has some investments in NFTs.

Crypto Projects Featuring Tim Draper

At the moment, there are no crypto projects featuring Tim Draper. But, there are projections that he will feature on Wall Street Memes soon. Having the venture capital investor will further improve the fast-growing prominence of Wall Street Memes in the crypto space. With the recent launching of $WSM, the team behind the Wall Street Memes has built on the success of its Wall St Bulls NFT collection that went live in 2021. Now, the $WSM has been the talk of the crypto industry due to the over $1.3 million worth of sales it racked up in just a few days to the presale. The number of investments and attention it racked up made it one of the successful crypto presales the market has witnessed in recent times. Now, $WSM is on the course to becoming the next cryptocurrency to rally high. Visit wallstmemes.com to invest in $WSM.

Tim Draper’s Net Worth – Our Verdict

We have been able to establish the net worth of Tim Draper, with key emphasis on his assets and investments. Our findings indicate that the billionaire is pro-crypto, with huge admiration for Bitcoin. Although, he lost the majority of his early BTC investments to the collapse of Mt.Gox, Draper did not give up on Bitcoin. As one of the famous investors in BTC, he attributes a majority of his net worth to crypto. Tim Draper is optimistic that the token will see a massive upsurge in the coming years so as to significantly impact his net worth.

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