DFJ Growth was founded in 2005 on the idea that strong tech companies would stay private longer and need a new kind of investor between venture capital and public markets, and it has grown independently from DFJ's earlier-stage arm, typically investing $10M–$25M in companies already growing over 100% a year with real product-market fit. The firm pairs capital with hands-on operating help from people who have scaled companies themselves, and it looks for founders solving big problems in areas like hardware, robotics, government and commercial dual-use, life tech, and consumer—not just enterprise software—often backing categories like electric vehicles, space, and crypto before they were widely popular, with early examples including Tesla, SpaceX, Coinbase, Unity, and Twitter.