Vector Capital

Vector Capital
Private
Industry Financial services, Investment management
Founded 1997
Headquarters One Market Plaza
San Francisco, California
Products Private equity
Total assets $2 billion
Number of employees
 40+
Website www.vectorcapital.com

Vector Capital is a private equity firm focused on value-oriented investments in technology companies. The firm invests across a range of situations including acquisitions of private companies, spinouts of non-core businesses from corporations, leveraged recapitalizations, pipes as well as public-to-private buyouts.

The firm, which is based in San Francisco, was founded in 1997. The firm has raised approximately $2 billion since inception across four funds. Vector is currently investing out of Vector Capital IV, a $1.2 billion investment fund raised in 2007.[1]

Vector Capital traces its origins to 1997, when the team, led by Alex Slusky, completed a spinoff from Ziff Brothers Investments. The Vector team had begun making investments in the 1990s with financial support from the Ziff family, founders of Ziff Davis Media. William Ziff's sons Dirk, Robert, and Daniel manage the family's investments through Ziff Brothers Investments. Slusky led the technology equity practice at Ziff Brothers Investments, managing a portfolio of public and private technology investments.[2] Slusky had previously been a venture capitalist at New Enterprise Associates.[3]

Among the firm's most notable investments are Aladdin Knowledge Systems,[4] CollabNet,[5] Corel,[6] Gerber Scientific,[7] LANDesk, Register.com, SafeNet, Savi Technology, Technicolor SA,[8] WatchGuard, and WinZip.

The Corel purchase was characterized as a "strip and flip" by Nanette Byrnes of Bloomberg.[9] According to Byrnes, "By ramping up Corel's debt from next to nothing to as much as $140 million prior to a May 2 [2006] initial public offering, Slusky has been able to secure a payout in cash dividends and stock sales of more than three times Vector's $58 million investment."[9]

References

  1. ↑ Vector Capital IV closes on $1.2bn. AltAssets, July 18, 2007
  2. ↑ Alex Slusky - MBA 1992. Harvard Business School
  3. ↑ Lewis, Michael. The new new thing: a Silicon Valley story. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000 p. 80
  4. ↑ Vector Takes Aladdin in $160 Million Deal. New York Times, January 13, 2009
  5. ↑ Vector Capital Makes Controlling Investment In CollabNet Developer Platform Techcrunch, January 31, 2014
  6. ↑ Corel Says Takeover Needed to Prevent Collapse. New York Times, November 24, 2009
  7. ↑ Gerber Scientific Consents to Private Equity Buyout Offer of $281M. Fox Business, June 13, 2011
  8. ↑ Vector Capital Buys Into Technicolor. Deadline.com, June 21, 2012
  9. 1 2 "Beyond The "Strip And Flip"". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-07-12.
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