Profits and Prophets: December

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VCs Ripe for the Picking; Region Tempts Central Valley Bank

By Art Garcia

If entrepreneurial money isn’t falling off trees in the Sacramento Metro Market, it’s there to be picked at the appropriate time, according to principals at the area’s two largest venture capital firms and the head of the Sacramento Angel Investors.
    Scott Lenet, a founder and managing director of VC firm DFJ Frontier, a Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliate and early-stage capital fund in West Sacramento, says there’s “substantial” VC investment money available in the region, with growing interest from the Bay Area. 
    “Now that we have a group of investors in the Sacramento region who are making early-stage investments, there’s a greater ability to promote these companies to investors outside the area,” says Lenet.
    More than half of the early-stage fund of American River Ventures in Roseville came from local investors that include CalPERS, its largest investor, says Harry Laswell, founder of American River Ventures. He says ARV is the largest local VC fund with $100 million raised for its first fund over four years, beginning in 2001. ARV plans to raise its second fund next year.

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