« Should VCs Have a Dress Code? | Main | CBS as YouTube Salesperson »

Latest Stories

• Excel Wankers and Recession Averages
• Sorry, New York is Closed. Check Back Later.
• Catching Falling 2009 Earnings Estimate Knife
• Survivorship Bias in Global Markets
• Talking Positions on a Lazy-ish Retirement Portfolio

November 22, 2006

EPVC's Bill Stensrud Leaves VC for Entrepreneurship

There was an interesting press release out from Enterprise Partners here in La Jolla yesterday. It's not often you have a (relatively) young guy near the top of the Forbes Midas List of VC dealmakers retire from the business:

William Stensrud Announces Retirement

Enterprise Partners General Partner to Retire From Venture Capital Investing

SAN DIEGO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 21, 2006 -- William Stensrud, a Managing Director and General Partner of San Diego's Enterprise Partners, announced today that he plans to retire from active venture capital investing.

Bill joined Enterprise Partners in 1997 with a focus on networking, telecommunications and, over the past few years, digital media. For the past 18 months, Stensrud has also been acting CEO of Muze, a digital media company and an Enterprise Partners' portfolio company.

Bill said, "I have great admiration, respect and affection for the team at Enterprise and I wish them all the best. For me, however, it is time to move on. While the venture capital industry has been an interesting challenge, I have spent most of my career as an entrepreneur. This is where I plan to return."

Over the past two years, Enterprise Partners has led investments in over forty transactions, raising a total of $667M, of which $240M came from Enterprise funds. During the same period, the firm invested in seventeen new companies and has seen eight acquisitions and two IPOs.

I know Bill and like him a great deal -- you can watch my interview of him here -- so I'm delighted to see him returning to his entrepreneurial roots. Bill has wonderful instincts for IT/telecom investing, so what he does next will be instructive to watch.

Sphere It   |   Digg it   |   Bookmark it   |   Stumble it   |   Facebook it