Top Venture Capitalists Reveal Their Best Deals Ever.LAST year was the best ever for L.A.-area recipients of venture capital, with a total of $1.8 billion in venture funds flowing into Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , Ventura and Santa Barbara Santa Barbara (săn'tə bär`brə, –bərə), city (1990 pop. 85,571), seat of Santa Barbara co., S Calif., on the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1850. counties, up from the $513.3 million in 1998. While some of those investments were made by firms located outside the L.A. area, many of them were made by local venture capitalists Venture Capitalist An investor who provides capital to either start-up ventures or support small companies who wish to expand but do not have access to public funding. Notes: Venture capitalists usually expect higher returns for the additional risks taken. . So the Business Journal asked some prominent venture capitalists around town: What was your best deal ever? Tony Hung General Partner It's so. hard to pick one that's the best or the biggest, but the one that's the highest profile -- and it's fresh in my mind because it was recent -- was eToys. We led the first-round Series A on eToys. They had gotten seed money from Idealab and a few hundred thousand from friends and family. After the angel round, they said, "Let's get some professional investors involved," and they did a venture capital round -- that's when we got involved. That was in December 1997. Subsequently they did a couple more rounds which, of course, we took a part in. Then they went public in May. DynaFund Ventures Because we got involved very early, we took a very calculated bet on a market we thought was going to be hot -- in this case e-commerce. We ended up investing about $3 million in the company. It's fair to say we made over 100 times that. Frank Creer Managing Director For this fund, to date, I'd have to say eStyle, that's the one going out quickest, and it's had a lot of notoriety. It's also the best performing to date. eStyle has really led the charge, with the publicity, the press and the notoriety, but primarily (the success is due to) Laurie McCartney, eStyle's founder, who is dynamic and understood the business better than anyone. She's talented, she knew what she was talking about, and she knew back then that there was an opportunity. We were introduced through an attorney in town. We made the investment in November 1998. Then we went through the bake-off of investment banking firms, selecting the group to take it out. It should (go public) within the next three to five months. Zone Ventures Brad Jones This article is about the racing driver. For the football goalkeeper, see Bradley Jones. Bradley Jones also known as Brad (born 2 April 1960) is an Australian racing driver formerly competing in the V8 Supercars. Managing Director My best deal in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, has been SandpiperNetwork. We invested about $4 million in the company in December, then it merged with Digital Island, which was already a public company. Digital's stock went from $23 to -- now it's over $100 a share. In fact, Digital Island/Sandpiper just completed over $600 million of financing, including a $300 million convertible bond. Redpoint Ventures What's fun is to see a technology concept become real. When we first invested in the company, it had some great technology with really great people. During the time we've been involved, we've seen the company expand the vision beyond that, to being a full-service posting and delivery network. Jon Funk General Partner Our biggest winner is SandpiperNetwork, which has a software technique that speeds up content delivery for Web sites. We put in the first round in November 1997, and then recruited a CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and a complete management team that built the software platform. We had a couple rounds of financing, then in December 1999 the company merged with a public company called Digital Island, whose market value was about $2.8 billion. We are still owners of Digital Island stock until later this year, and if it pencils out, our $3.5 million investment will come out $350 million to $400 million. Media Technology Ventures Jeff Anderson Mellon Ventures Managing Director It's a private company called IPNet Solutions in Newport Beach Newport Beach, residential and resort city (1990 pop. 66,643), Orange co., S Calif., on Newport Bay and the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1906. It is a popular seaside resort and yachting center. Manufactures include electrical and medical equipment, computers, boats, and adhesives. . It's a business-to-business infrastructure company that allows companies and their trading partners to exchange data, and transact An earlier e-commerce system for the Web from Open Market that included order capture and secure order fulfillment using credit cards, ecash and other payment systems. It included customer service and subscription administration capabilities as well as an integrated database for reporting and collaborate via the Internet. We were involved early on, a year ago, and we have $5 million behind it. Right now we're doing a mezzanine round -- a pre-IPO round and talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to underwriters. It's gratifying grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. to be involved early and see the vision come to fruition. It is like being a parent -- it's fun to watch your children grow up and it's true, I feel like all my kids are pretty -- I'd hate to have to choose one. Chief Executive James Montgomery James Montgomery (November 4, 1771 - April 30, 1854) was a British editor and poet. Montgomery, poet, son of a pastor and missionary of the Moravian Brethren, was born at Irvine in Ayrshire, and educated at the Moravian School at Fulneck, near Pudsey in Leeds. Digital Coast Partners I'd really like to downplay down·play tr.v. down·played, down·play·ing, down·plays To minimize the significance of; play down: downplayed the bad news. Verb 1. this one, but I'd have to say iBeam Broadcast. It's going to be the biggest IPO (Initial Public Offering) The first time a company offers shares of stock to the public. While not a computer term per se, many founders, employees and insiders of computer companies have found this acronym more exciting than any tech term they ever heard. this year. It uses multi-cast streaming content, like music and video, for any kind of Internet infrastructure, and I think it's going to be huge, enormous. We created it -- it's a new idea. We came up with the concept in December of 1997, and did the seed financing in March of 1998. We're going public in April of this year. |
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