Cliff Higgerson: The Venture Capitalist Who Wrote the Checks to Fund the Globalization of the Internet, Web, and e-Commerce
When you hear “who created or invented the internet or web,” many names often come up. Though, in reality, it took countless people over 30 years to lay critical foundations with TCP/IP and web protocols, and that’s undeniable. By the 1990s, decades after these foundations were laid, the internet and web we know today—spanning continents, powering e-commerce—weren’t built by a few visionaries alone. It took an ecosystem of dreamers, builders, and, crucially, venture capital financiers to make them a global reality.
Cliff Higgerson was the financial engine behind this transformation. In 1998, when I traveled to Beijing to connect China to the internet, making CERNET a major Tier 1 internet service provider overnight, it wasn’t China or Tsinghua University footing the bill, nor even contributing to the costs. It was Cliff’s venture capital—$80,000 a month—from my cost center at Digital Island that paid for it. While Xing Li at Tsinghua advanced China’s internet adoption, Cliff’s funding made it possible. That’s just one piece of his monumental impact.
In 1996, he wrote a $300,000 check to seed Digital Island, the company I co-founded, co-authored the first business plan, and specifically authored the financials that Cliff funded on. By 1997, he led a $3.5 million Series A round, sparking what became $779 million in total funding. That money didn’t just support ideas—it built the data centers, bought the cables, routers, servers, and the highly specialized teams that globalized the internet and e-commerce, revolutionizing how we communicate and trade.
Before these networks could scale, pioneers laid the conceptual groundwork:
Robert Kahn: Co-created TCP/IP, forming the internet’s backbone protocols for reliable data transmission.
John Postel: A cornerstone of ARPANET and DARPA, standardizing early protocols.
Louis Pouzin: Inspired packet-switching in the 1970s Cyclades project, a key influence on TCP/IP.
Robert Cailliau: Envisioned hyperlinking at CERN in 1987, shaping the web’s early framework.
Vint Cerf: Co-created TCP/IP with Kahn, enabling robust internet connectivity.
Tim Berners-Lee: Developed HTTP, HTML, and the first web browser, enabling web navigation.
Nicola Pellow: Built the 1991 Line Mode Browser, expanding web access to diverse systems.
Dan Connolly: Standardized early web technologies, making them practical for widespread use.
Yakov Rekhter and Kirk Lougheed: Developed BGP enabling global routing.
Eric Bina and Marc Andreessen: Created the Mosaic browser, making the web user-friendly.
These pioneers didn’t just dream—they tested and proved their ideas. But concepts don’t connect continents. You need physical networks—circuits, ports, switches, servers—and teams to manage and support them. These servers weren’t in Stanford, USC, UCLA, or MIT classrooms; we needed costly data centers with massive power, fire suppression, real estate, and security to make it work. Cliff’s funding enabled 95% of all internet-accessible users to be on one global network together.
The internet and web are telecommunications platforms built on protocols like TCP/IP and HTTP. Though in 1996, using the internet was like sucking a grapefruit through a straw—and 99.6% of people in the world had no straw at all. Digital Island, backed by Cliff, changed that.
Cliff’s funding was the catalyst. Before e-commerce existed, we walked into banks to wire funds—literally writing checks to build the systems we now take for granted. His leadership fueled a $12 billion dollar initial public offering that scaled e-commerce worldwide, serving best-of-class enterprises like Visa, E*TRADE, Cisco, Stanford, Google, Microsoft, MasterCard, Charles Schwab, Compaq, Intel, and over 800 others.
This story of the Internet isn’t just about the pioneers who wrote protocols or proved concepts. It’s about the financiers and builders who made them real. Cliff might wear a t-shirt saying, “I didn’t invent the internet or web, but I paid the Lion’s Share to globalize them and enable e-commerce.” That’s the truth.
Cliff and those like him pulled the financial plow to harvest this revolution in human communication and commerce. They deserve their place in history. Cliff, thank you!
Cliff has almost four decades of experience in venture investing and has backed some of the most successful companies in the communications industry. As a Castile advisor, he shares his market insights and keen ability to identify blockbuster technologies early in their development with Castile and its portfolio.
Past investments have included industry leaders such as Advanced Fibre Communications (NASDAQ: AFCI); America Online; Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN); Digital Island (acquired by Cable & Wireless); Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB); MCI (NASDAQ: MCIP); and Octel (NYSE: OTL).
Cliff was a Founding Partner of ComVentures, a General Partner with Vanguard Venture Partners and is a Venture Partner with Walden International. He has also served as a Managing Partner and Director of Research for Hambrecht & Quist, and as a Special Limited Partner and Director of the Communications Group for L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.
Cliff holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BS from the University of Illinois.