Dan Williams grew up in the Dallas area, attended Plano East High School and went to MIT and came back to Texas where now lives in Dallas and works as Vice-President of Delta-v.
Delta-v was founded in 2009 and is investing out of their 3rd
fund.Delta-v is unique compared to most typical growth equity firms. Their
strategy is to provide secondary liquidity to existing shareholders in late
stage growth companies. That could be providing
partial liquidity to existing management teams, cashing out employees who left
the company, or providing liquidity to other investors including angels and
other venture funds. . Often times, people will take 10-20% off the
table to pay taxes or buy a house. As
their funds have grown, they’ve expanded into primary growth capital and work
on both primary and secondary investments.
They look for companies that have removed business model
risk. They typically seek $10-$20M in
revenue and above. To date, they have invested in over 20 deals. Most of their
investments have revenue above $20M. They look for those who are getting towards
cash flow breakeven and are growing at least 20% per year. Delta-v invest as
little as $2M and up to $20M.
Delta-v invests broadly across technology sectors. The current Delta-v portfolio includes investments
in enterprise SaaS, security, consumer anddigital media, SaaS, healthcare IT
and more.
They don’t have strict requirements around taking a board
seat or a target ownership percentage. They can be the less active investor. When
needed or desired, they do sit on boards and have leadership that has come from
the startup industry and have a great deal o f experience. Dan was previously with Cisco’s Corporate Development team focused on Cloud and
Analytics and understands what strategic
acquirers look for. Delta-v understands
what it takes to run a company as well as the technology behind it. They have contacts and connections and can
also help with hiring.
They were the first investors in Drilling Info. That’s the
only deal they’ve done in Texas so far but want to do
more. The Dallas community is growing
well. They’re impressed with the number
of companies coming up and are looking to find more opportunities outside of the
coasts.
Dan said it’s helpful to meet a company who has given you
advance information. He likes to track
their progression over time. It is still
interesting to meet companies below $10M in revenue to track them over time.
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