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Journalism of Courage
Dick Kramlich, a veteran tech investor and one of Apple’s early backers, passed away on Saturday, February 1, at the age of 89.
The venture capital (VC) pioneer co-founded investing firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) nearly 50 years ago, long before investing in tech startups was a trend. Kramlich studied at Northwestern and pursued a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University, according to a report by CNBC.
After business school, he forayed into the world of investments after meeting Arthur Rock, another early investor of Apple as well as Intel. Together, they moved to California and started Arthur Rock & Co. in 1969.
In 1977, Kramlich left the firm to start NEA along with a few others. Kramlich eventually left NEA in 2012 after helping the firm raise $2.6 billion for its 14th fund, one of the biggest ever at the time in the industry.
Kramlich put some of his money into an ethernet technology company called 3Com founded by Bob Metcalfe. 3Com later went public in 1984 and was reportedly valued at over $28 billion during the dot-com bubble of the 2000s. In 2010, HP acquired 3Com for $2.7 billion.
Another Kramlich-backed tech company called Grand Junction was sold to Cisco in 1995. Force10 Networks, a data centre networking company, was also part of his investment portfolio before being acquired by Dell in 2011.
Kramlich further backed tech startups such as Macromedia, Ascend Communications and Juniper Networks. He was also part of the board of directors of TAE Technologies, a US-based clean energy company.
In 2017, Kramlich reportedly began looking beyond technology to invest in other sectors such as manufacturing, energy, transportation, logistics, real estate, and more through a new VC firm called Green Bay Ventures.
Reacting to Kramlich’s death, Scott Sandell, the executive chairman of NEA, said, “Dick was beloved by countless entrepreneurs and venture capitalists because of his undying optimism and perseverance against really all odds. It was that spirit along with his generous and gracious ways that made him more loveable than perhaps any venture capitalist I’ve ever known.”
