Haque, Khosla world's topmost venture capitalists

Promod Haque, the New Delhi-born managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners, has been ranked as the topmost venture capitalist in the world, according to the Forbes Midas List. Haque was in the second spot last year.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, who held the top slot last, has been nudged a spot down to the second place this year.

The Forbes Midas list ranks the world's top ten venture capitalists.

The other eight venture capitalists who figure in the list are: David Strohm (Greylock), L John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Lawrence Sonsini (Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati), Michael Grimes (Morgan Stanley), Paul Chamberlain (Morgan Stanley), J Peter Wagner (Accel Partners), Charles Cory (Morgan Stanley), and Seth Neiman (Crosspoint Venture Partners).

Forbes said: "Like many venture capitalists, Promod Haque slammed a few home runs in the late Nineties bubble -- but lately the big hits have been harder to come by for the managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners. One promising fledgling, a Voice over Internet Protocol play called Veraz Networks, has gone through a foreclosure, a merger, three name changes and two business plans."

"But Haque stuck it out rather than cut and run as many VCs are prone to do. Now Veraz is coming back: It has $60 million in annual revenue and runs ten global networks, in Russia, India, Southeast Asia and elsewhere," said Forbes.

Forbes quoted Haque as saying: "By the time the market picks up in the US, we'll already have a global leadership position."

Son of a bureaucrat father and a schoolteacher mother, Haque holds an engineering degree from the University of Delhi.

Haque is in favour of outsourcing to low-cost destinations, and feels the trend has only just begun. He believes that in the long term, exposing countries like India and China to technology will create additional markets for US products, said Forbes.

Vinod Khosla, who takes the second spot, is a partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He is a graduate in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi and an MBA from the Stanford.

The annual Midas List ranks people who most successfully use venture capital to create wealth for their investors. Forbes said: "Our formula ignores the original amount invested in a deal, as it is often undisclosed. Instead, we look at the market capitalisation of a venture-backed company on the close of its first day of trading or the purchase price in an acquisition."

"The change in value of each investment since going public or being sold as well as a venture capitalist's (or lawyer's, banker's or recruiter's) length of involvement and influence with a startup are also considered," said Forbes.

A recent survey conducted by VentureOne and Ernst & Young said that venture capitalists had invested $1.66 billion in Silicon Valley in the last quarter -- 22 per cent increase from $1.36 billion, signaling a recovery of the US economy.

The survey said that the first significant upswing in investments after years of rough times, the rise in venture investment in information technology companies signals recovering economy and greater jobs, since start-ups have traditionally created the most job growths.

More than $1 billion were invested in information technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area region in 108 financing rounds. Healthcare was also particularly strong with $528 million invested for the quarter and $1.6 billion invested for the year.