The pioneer of the risk capital of Silicon Valley, Dick Kramlich, one of the first investors in Apple, dies at 89 years

Dick Kramlich, the pioneer of the risk capital that New Enterprise Associates co -founded almost 50 years ago and turned it into a power of Silicon Valley that regularly raised funds of one billion dollars more, died on Saturday. He was 89 years old.

His death was sudden and “did not have a long disease,” his daughter, Christina Kramlich, confirmed to CNBC, adding that the family will provide more details soon.

“We have lost our warm, curious and always optimistic family leader,” he said.

Long before Venture Capitalist was an established profession, Kramlich saw the opportunity, to invest some cash in technological entrepreneurs and profits together with them, assuming they were successful. Had put part of his own money in Apple Before joining Chuck Newhall and Frank Bonsal to start Nea in 1977, a few years after the big batters Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins opened their doors in Menlo Park, California.

Kramlich hit him big in computer networks, writing an early 3com check, which Bob Metcalfe It began as a way to market Ethernet technology. The company was made public in 1984 and rose to an assessment of $ 28 billion During the 2000 DOT-COM bubble. 3com technology was finally avoided by products from Cisco And others and the company was Bought by HP in 2010 for $ 2.7 billion.

In another part of the space, Kramlich invested in Grand Junction, initiated by a 3com co -founder and saw that company until 1995 Sale to Cisco. And then there was the company network centers company force10 Networks, which was acquired by Dell In 2011.

“So we have gone from the beginning of the Ethernet that becomes the dominant Internet protocol for network communications,” Kramlich said in a 2006 interview With the Oral Historian Mauree Jane Perry.

Kramlich also supported companies that include Macromedia, Asce Communications and Juniper networks. In the Power Musion, Kramlich invested in TAE technologiesand sat on the board until the day of his death.

Kramlich retired from Nea in 2012, around the moment the company collected $ 2.6 billion For its 14th fund, one of the largest at that time in the industry. But he hadn’t finished investing.

In 2017, Kramlich Green Bay Ventures began Invest in companies that develop technology and products in manufacturing, energy, transport, logistics, real estate and communications. Green Bay launched with Anthony Schiller, who began managing Kramlich’s family money in 2011, and Casey Tatham, who directed finances for the family office.

The firm is named after the city of Wisconsin where Kramlich was born in 1935. Kramlich’s father began a food chain there and his mother became an aeronautical engineer. After moving through Wisconsin as a child, Kramlich went to university in Northwestern and then moved to the Boston area to follow a master’s degree in Harvard Business Administration.

After Business School, Kramlich got into the world of investments in Boston, and finally met Apple Early and Intel Arthur Rock inverter. He moved to California and helped start Arthur Rock & Co. in 1969. Eight years later, Kramlich said goodbye to start Nea, with operations in Baltimore, Maryland and Silicon Valley.

Scott Sandell, Executive President of Nea, joined the firm in 1996. He said he was working as a consultant and met Kramlich after presenting a startup to the firm, initially in the Baltimore office. His professional career changed quickly, and instead of raising money for the startup, he got a job in Nea and has remained for almost three decades.

“He was the reason why many of us joined,” Sandell said in an interview. “Dick was loved by innumerable entrepreneurs and capitalists at risk due to their eternal optimism and perseverance against really all probabilities. It was that spirit along with its generous and friendly forms that made it more adorable that perhaps any risk capitalist he has known,” .

Kramlich survives his daughter Christina, as well as his wife, Pam, and her other children, Rix and Mary Donna.