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Angel Investor (Individual)
backtoreality.com

Investments

37

Portfolio Exits

12

About Bill Lee

Bill Lee was CEO and co-founder of Remarq, a Benchmark Capital-backed collaboration company. At Remarq, Bill guided the company in its development of a complete end-to-end Internet messaging and collaboration platform. Before its acquisition by Critical Path in March 2000 for $265 million, the company developed high-volume messaging platforms for sites such as eBay, Sun, Novell, and Amazon. Bill Lee is an angel investor and some of his recent investments include Tesla Motors (nasdaq: TSLA), Posterous, Tweetdeck, Zelfy, Social Concepts, Playhaven (advisory board member), Appmakr (advisory board member) and Mighty Meeting. He is also on the advisory board of i/o ventures (http://www.ventures.io) -- a San Francisco early stage startup program that focuses heavily on mentorship. Bill also graduated Beta Gamma Sigma from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in accounting/finance and received a JD/MBA from UCLA.

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Latest Bill Lee News

From crisis conservation to salvation

Dec 7, 2023

You are not permitted to download, save or email this image. Visit image gallery to purchase the image. The weirdly wonderful takahē is a success story, conservation ecologist Bill Lee writes. Dr Geoffrey Orbell’s rediscovery of takahe on November 20 1948, was an ornithological highlight of the 20th century and the conservation efforts that followed have been equally remarkable. Recently, the Department of Conservation celebrated 75 years since the rediscovery of the takahe in Fiordland with a gathering in Te Anau of representatives of the Orbell family, former and current Doc staff, researchers, representatives of community groups and current sponsors Fulton Hogan. It was a time of reminiscence, tall stories, reflection, and an update on the status of the birds. For attendees, we were there to acknowledge the considerable efforts, persistence, innovation, and collaboration of many groups through the decades in securing the takahe as a species in our longest running recovery programme. The takahe is an extraordinary and weirdly wonderful bird, an endemic species, the largest rail, flightless, a grassland specialist, living in lowland to alpine environments. It’s a picky feeder (young tussock grass leaves, seeds and fern rhizomes), long lived, territorial, slightly clumsy, and much more, all described in Alison Ballance’s recent book Takahe: The Bird of Dreams. The birds persist in the Murchison Mountains, Fiordland National Park, but are now found across New Zealand in many eco-sanctuaries and on several offshore islands. Start-up populations have also been established in Kahurangi National Park and most recently in the Greenstone Valley. Takahe now number more than 500, improving the species conservation threat category from nationally critical to nationally endangered. Takahe conservation efforts have pioneered the development of population recruitment research, species recovery plans, disease protocols, and translocation strategies to maintain genetic diversity. Along the way, there have been challenges associated with captive breeding, radio-tracking birds, obtaining reliable population census data, and finding suitable safe sites for new populations. Much of the success of the programme is due to staff from the Wildlife Service, Department of Internal Affairs, followed by Doc, which has provided funding to support takahe conservation over many decades. A feature of the Takahe Recovery Programme has been the long partnerships with Te Runanga Ngai Tahu who are involved in the recovery plans, translocations and managing the birds. Community groups are also extensively engaged with eco-sanctuary management, caring for the birds, and facilitating public access. In addition, commercial partnerships are providing essential resources for aspects of the programme. Crucial to saving the takahe and assisting conservation options has been the specialist captive breeding and rearing centre at Burwood, established in 1985. The unit maximises egg production and in the last decade has provided between 20-30 juveniles annually for distribution elsewhere. Nowadays, artificial aids have been supplanted by the "takahe teaching takahe" approach. Experienced pairs provide eggs, incubation, and some foster juvenile training in Fern Rhizome Grubbing 101. Captive bred and reared birds have been critical for saving the Fiordland population, especially when in recent decades intense tussock and beech mast events boost stoat numbers that overwhelm the predator trapping network. The centre has also provided new birds for the island populations and for release in eco-sanctuaries. The centre has been the hub for keeping families apart across sites to control inbreeding, which reduces the population’s ability to cope with environmental change. Using new genomic techniques, the takahe whakapapa can now be managed during bird translocations to limit contact between closely related birds to improve collective genetic diversity. Although the species is likely secure, the present conservation challenge is to find safe, suitable habitat for several self-sustaining populations of takahe, including the Murchison Mountains. Most islands and eco-sanctuaries are too small to have viable populations, and this has prompted releases of birds to the Gouland Downs, Kahurangi National Park, and more recently in the Greenstone Valley. However, at none of these mainland sites are takahe secure without regularly maintained, intensive predator control which will need to endure for the long-term survival of the birds. For vulnerable ground birds such as takahe, it is becoming clear from both the Murchison Mountains experience and attempts to establish populations elsewhere on the mainland, that the strategy of predator-free areas is essential for securing viable populations of these remarkable birds in habitats where they can thrive. This must be a primary goal as we approach the centennial anniversary of the rediscovery if we are to ever celebrate the full security of the takahe. Bill Lee is based in Dunedin and was involved with the takahe programme from 1976–2014.

Bill Lee Investments

37 Investments

Bill Lee has made 37 investments. Their latest investment was in Render Network as part of their Series A on December 12, 2021.

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Bill Lee Investments Activity

investments chart

Date

Round

Company

Amount

New?

Co-Investors

Sources

12/21/2021

Series A

Render Network

$30M

Yes

1

3/15/2018

Seed

Lightning Labs

$2.5M

Yes

4

12/11/2017

Series B

BitGo

$42.5M

Yes

9

11/3/2017

Angel

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$99M

Subscribe to see more

10

9/26/2017

Series A

Subscribe to see more

$99M

Subscribe to see more

10

Date

12/21/2021

3/15/2018

12/11/2017

11/3/2017

9/26/2017

Round

Series A

Seed

Series B

Angel

Series A

Company

Render Network

Lightning Labs

BitGo

Subscribe to see more

Subscribe to see more

Amount

$30M

$2.5M

$42.5M

$99M

$99M

New?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Subscribe to see more

Subscribe to see more

Co-Investors

Sources

1

4

9

10

10

Bill Lee Portfolio Exits

12 Portfolio Exits

Bill Lee has 12 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was Arcus on November 24, 2021.

Date

Exit

Companies

Valuation
Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.

Acquirer

Sources

11/24/2021

Acquired

$99M

7

8/18/2021

Acq - Pending

$99M

1

12/23/2020

Reverse Merger

$99M

12

12/16/2020

Acquired

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$99M

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10

8/3/2016

Acquired

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$99M

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10

Date

11/24/2021

8/18/2021

12/23/2020

12/16/2020

8/3/2016

Exit

Acquired

Acq - Pending

Reverse Merger

Acquired

Acquired

Companies

Subscribe to see more

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Valuation

$99M

$99M

$99M

$99M

$99M

Acquirer

Subscribe to see more

Subscribe to see more

Sources

7

1

12

10

10

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