I was in the maelstrom of internet 1.0 as a venture capital and securities attorney. I helped take one of the first e-commerce companies public (Shopping.com) and represented numerous startups, including Scour.net, which was founded by, among others, Travis Kalanick while he was still in college.
My career was ended by a drunk driver in 2001 when I was rear-ended at over 70 MPH when my car was at a stop. After 10 spinal surgeries and over 50 other spinal procedures, the end result ids that I am permanently disabled with spinal and nerve damage, including severe neuropathy and myelopathy, and live my life at over a 9 pain level every day.
When the doctors informed my wife and me that they wanted to perform yet another surgery, we looked at each other and determined having another surgery is the definition of insanity, as we would be doing the same thing, but expecting a different result. We decided instead to look at my roots, which was venture capital, and see what innovations were being developed at startups in the healthcare space. As we traveled down this path, we saw other brilliant and creative entrepreneurs doing innovative and exciting things in many other fields and decided that as we looked for solutions for my situation, we might as well invest in the entrepreneurs we believe in.
Thus, we assembled a portfolio of close to 40 companies, all with our own money. What we have seen now is two things. First, many more of the companies we invested in have been more successful than we expected and are going out and raising succeeding rounds of financing. Instead of just writing a new check, we would like to help these companies grow and introduce them to a broader audience. Second, our deal flow is extremely robust and we would like to help the best of the entrepreneurs that we find raise the capital that they require so that they can execute on their business plans in an expeditious manner.
We would be happy to syndicate our deals. Our concern is raising the capital required so that the entrepreneur(s) can execute on the business plan.
