Paul Gompers

Paul A. Gompers is one of the most cited academic authorities on venture capital and private equity, and the Eugene Holman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School — a chair he has held since 2000. He grew up in Belleville, Illinois, earned his A.B. summa cum laude in biology from Harvard College in 1987, worked briefly as a research biochemist at Bayer, then studied economics at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar (M.Sc.) before completing a Ph.D. in Business Economics at Harvard in 1993. He began his teaching career as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, where he created a course on Entrepreneurial Finance and Management, before returning to HBS. He holds appointments in both the Finance and Entrepreneurial Management units, teaches in Executive Education, previously served nine years as HBS director of research, and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

On the investing side, Gompers is a co-founder of Spur Capital Partners, a venture capital fund-of-funds established in 2001 (by Paul Fetsch, Gompers, Joan Heidorn, and Brad Kelly). The founders had been directors at Knightsbridge Advisers before spinning out to focus exclusively on early-stage venture. Spur provides institutional and family-office investors access to diversified portfolios of select early-stage, technology-focused U.S. venture partnerships, and by September 30, 2025 managed roughly $1 billion in regulatory assets across more than 125 clients in the U.S. and Europe, with net distributions to investors for 11 consecutive years (2014–2025).

On March 25, 2026, Denver-based alternative asset manager Bow River Capital announced an agreement to acquire Spur Capital Partners (expected to close in Q2 2026) to build an evergreen venture capital strategy. Gompers is slated to continue in his investment-committee role on the combined venture team. Beyond Spur, he serves as an advisor to Xfund (an early-stage, Harvard-affiliated VC firm) and to J2 Ventures, and works as an expert witness and senior advisor with Cornerstone Research on securities and valuation matters.

Gompers is also notable outside finance: a former elite distance runner, he set a world under-20 marathon record (2:15:28) in 1983, won bronze at the 1985 World University Games, was the 1989 U.S. National 20K champion, and competed at the 1988 Olympics and three Olympic Trials.

• Fund-of-funds access strategy: Spur's core belief is that returns come from relationships with the best venture managers — "Through our strong venture capital relationships, we're able to deliver unrivaled access to the innovation economy and start up ecosystem" (Gompers, 2026).
• Early-stage, tech and life sciences: Focus on early-stage, technology-centric U.S. venture partnerships, more recently expanding into life-science funds.
• Manager/talent selection over hype: Emphasis on identifying "next-generation elite talent" among GPs — consistent with his academic finding that in early-stage investing the team matters more than the product or technology.
• Team-first evaluation: His landmark survey research ("How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?") found VCs rate deal selection as the most important driver of value and weight the founding team above business characteristics — a lens he applies as an investor.
• Diversity as performance: His research (e.g., "And the Children Shall Lead: Gender Diversity and Performance in Venture Capital," 2021) argues that greater diversity within investment teams improves outcomes.