This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on July 18, 2022.
This article is adapted from reporting by Family Office New Insight, which profiled Howard Schultz’s family, philanthropy and venture investing activity as of July 2022.
According to Forbes, Howard Schultz’s net worth was $3.9 billion as of July 7, 2022. Best known as the leader who grew Starbucks from 11 stores into a global chain of more than 30,000 stores, Schultz had retired from the company twice before returning in March 2022 as interim CEO.
Beyond Starbucks, Schultz has also been active as a venture investor and philanthropist.
Schultz was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1953. His father, Fred Schultz, was a former U.S. Army soldier and truck driver; his mother, Elaine, was a homemaker. Schultz grew up with a brother, Michael, and a sister, Ronnie.
The family lived in low-income housing in Brooklyn. Schultz later described that background as a source of drive: fear of failure and the desire to escape hardship shaped his ambition.
A sports scholarship took him to Northern Michigan University after he graduated from Canarsie High School in 1971. He became the first member of his family to attend and graduate from college.
After graduation, Schultz worked at a ski lodge, then as a Xerox salesperson, and later as general manager at Hammarplast, the U.S. subsidiary of Swedish kitchenware maker PAI Partners. In 1982, at age 29, he joined Starbucks as director of retail operations and marketing. In 1987, he became one of Starbucks’ founders in its modern form and served as CEO for the first time.
Schultz formally left Starbucks’ board in 2018 and became chairman emeritus. In March 2022, he returned as interim CEO.
Schultz’s wife, Sheri Kersch, was born in 1954 and graduated from the University of Denver. She co-founded the Schultz Family Foundation with him and serves as its chair.
The couple have two children: Jordan Schultz, born in 1986, and Addison Schultz, born in 1990. Neither is involved in Starbucks or Maveron, Schultz’s venture capital firm. Jordan became a sports columnist for The Huffington Post. Addison became a clinical social worker at New York Foundling.
Schultz has said he began teaching his children values early, applying what he described as gentle but consistent pressure to help them become mature and grounded adults.
Schultz and Sheri Kersch founded the Schultz Family Foundation in 1996. Its stated mission is to create opportunity for people facing barriers, especially young people transitioning into adulthood and marginalized communities including Black, Indigenous and other people of color.
The foundation focuses particularly on two groups:
U.S. tax records cited in the source article show that Schultz donated less than 1% of his wealth to the Schultz Family Foundation in fiscal 2017. Forbes reported that, as of June 30, 2017, he had donated about $18.066 million to the foundation that fiscal year, around 0.53% of his $3.4 billion net worth. Since 1999, he had contributed an estimated 2.5% of his wealth to the family foundation.
In 2019, the foundation invested $7.5 million in Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families to support the Onward to Opportunity program for veteran employment.
On June 8, 2022, the foundation launched a $100 million Entrepreneurs Equity Fund. The fund was designed to provide direct equity investment and access to non-predatory capital, including revenue-based financing and low-cost working capital, for innovative, growth-oriented and diverse businesses.
The fund also planned to support portfolio companies through training, executive coaching, data collection, research and policy work. Schultz said the goal was to create fairer access to opportunity for entrepreneurs regardless of background or race, especially diverse and underrepresented founders.
Two years after the foundation was created, Schultz co-founded Maveron in 1998 as a venture capital firm focused on consumer businesses. Its investment areas include consumer goods and services, foodservice and retail, communications and networking, education and training, information technology, software and internet, sports and entertainment.
The name Maveron combines the ideas of being a maverick and having vision. Within six months of launch, Maveron had raised $75 million.
In 2016, Maveron raised Maveron Equity Partners VI with $100 million and Maveron VI Entrepreneurs’ Fund with $15 million. On May 24, 2022, Maveron raised $225 million for its eighth fund to back more consumer-centered startups.
Maveron’s partners said the firm does not intend to let its funds become too large. Their view: they are not building assets under management for its own sake, but trying to generate cash returns. In their words, in this market, “scale is the enemy of performance.”
That position contrasts with the broader venture market’s so-called SoftBank Effect, where firms have raised increasingly large vehicles across stages. The source article cited Andreessen Horowitz’s $2.2 billion crypto-focused fund raised in 2021 and its $9 billion biotech-focused fund raised in January 2022.
While many venture firms have expanded across early, mid and late stages, Maveron has continued to focus on seed and Series A investing.
Maveron’s eighth fund was managed by six people, including women. The firm said gender balance helped it see opportunities others might miss. In 2021, 70% of the founders backed by Maveron were women.
Maveron also emphasizes age diversity within its team, combining investors who have lived through multiple market cycles with younger investors closer to emerging consumer trends.
As markets weakened in 2022, Maveron partner Jason Stoffer wrote on Twitter that although growth stocks were under pressure, consumer confidence was falling and recession risk was rising, history does not repeat exactly. He argued that the next iconic consumer brand would likely emerge not from a platform shift, but from major disruption in consumer behavior.
Maveron often studies how consumer-centered ideas can reshape traditional industries, citing examples such as real estate with Common, fuel with Booster, and hospitality and healthcare with Keeps.
The firm has offices in Seattle and San Francisco. It is also a Certified B Corporation, a designation for for-profit companies meeting standards for social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.
Natalie Dillon of Maveron said the firm believes profit and purpose can coexist. Its B Corp status also supports participation in initiatives such as Diversity Riders, which aim to increase investor diversity in startup deals, and commitments to donate some carried-interest profits to causes including social justice.
As of July 2021, Maveron had made more than 250 investments since 1998. Its known consumer investments included eBay, Drugstore.com, Lucy Activewear, Pinkberry, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Cranium and Shutterfly.
Exited companies included eBay, Capella Education Company, Shutterfly, Cranium, Qsent, Quellos, Good Technology and Lucy Activewear. Reported acquirers included Hasbro for Cranium, TransUnion for Qsent, BlackRock for Quellos, Motorola for Good Technology and VF Corporation for Lucy Activewear.
Within Maveron’s portfolio, 11 companies had gone public, while 14 companies had reached valuations of $100 million or more. Its 2021 investments included Pacaso, Booster Fuels, Imperfect Foods and Modern Fertility.
Compared with other firms, Maveron reportedly leads 12% fewer rounds on average but exits 7% more frequently. It typically completes 7 to 12 investment deals per year.
The firm looks for companies that have usually been operating for at least two to three years, have teams of five to six people, and are trying to rewrite the rules of consumer experience across shopping, dining, work, entertainment, living, learning and connected life.
Maveron also provides post-investment support, including recruiting help, network access and board participation.
Schultz has served, or previously served, on boards including eBay, Pinkberry, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Square, Groupon and Drugstore.com, and has been an investor and adviser to Gatheredtable. His involvement in Maveron declined when he explored a 2020 U.S. presidential run, though he later withdrew from that race.
Note: IPO, valuation, fund-size and forward-looking figures are historical and reflect the source article’s 2022 context.