Historical Sidebar

I’ve been buried the past couple of weeks but thought I’d take a few minutes to share a brief historical aside about VC in OC.  I sat down with Chuck Martin several weeks ago to speak with him about the history of venture capital in Orange County and to get his perspective on the future of VC in OC and the industry as a whole (thanks again, Chuck).  For those of you that don’t know Chuck, he is considered the patriarch of venture capital in southern California.  Chuck formed Enterprise Partners Venture Capital in Orange County in early 1984 (holding the final close in February 1985) with roughly $30M under management from a mixture of institutional and corporate limited partners and began building his team and portfolio.  He explained how the industry was much more collegial back then and that Enterprise had its pick of the litter being virtually the only institutional investor in the area.  He brought Jim Berglund in to set up their La Jolla office in 1985 and Jim Gauer to open their L.A. office in 1988 — essentially giving them complete coverage of southern California’s venture landscape back then.  Chuck also pointed out how a $30M fund was formidable in those days and that their first few funds were all top-decile performers.  We discussed a number of deals and related activities at length and then moved on to the future of VC in OC.  Like a lot of us in the industry here, Chuck is very bullish on our collective prospects here in OC given the breadth and depth of industries in southern California as a whole, the sheer number of and our proximity to top technical universities that consistently produce cutting-edge research (CalTech, USC, UCLA, UCI, UCR, and UCSD), as well as our favorable geographical climate and general quality of life.  I, for one, am very encouraged about the VC ecosystem in and around OC and feel our impact to the region as a whole is just now beginning to be understood and appreciated.  Until next time, aloha.