Ram Shriram

New York : Three Indian Americans, including debutant Ram Shriram, who put his money into Internet search engine Google, are among top 10 investors on Forbes magazine’s latest annual ‘Midas List’ of 100 best venture capitalists.

Shriram, an early investor in Google Inc. that went public last year, was ranked sixth, while renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalists Pramod Haque and Vinod Khosla were ranked eighth and ninth, respectively.

Vinod Khosla

A member of the Google board since September 1998 and partner at venture fund Sherpalo, Shriram was a co-founder of Junglee and has served as vice president of Amazon.com. He was an early member of the Netscape executive team.

Shriram “likes to call himself a Sherpa –– helps entrepreneurs climb the peaks of Mount Nasdaq. Looking for university research to exploit,” Forbes said.

The California-based Khosla, who is a partner at the well-known Silicon Valley venture fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, had co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and counts among the richest people of Indian origin.

Pramod Haque

Among his recent activities, Khosla has endowed $5 million to his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, and is starting a micro-credit program for small units in India on the lines of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

Khosla is “semi-retired now, which means he’s only working 80 hours a week,” said Forbes, adding that he now proposes to fund projects that have high socio-economic impact.

These include protein arrays for low-cost medicine and micro-loans in India, besides investing in Zettacore, a chip company and one of a few nano-technology outfits in which he has faith.

Haque is a managing partner with Norwest Venture Partners. “Last year’s number one dealmaker had a quiet year. His specialty –– no-name networking companies that get sold for billions,” Forbes said.

His old hits included parking funds at Cerent and CoSine, while his current investments include Amberpoint and Veraz, said the magazine.