The pioneer of the risk capital of silicon valley Dick Kramlich, an early investor in Apple, dies in 89

Dick Kramlich, a pioneer of a risky capital that faced New Enterprise Associates almost 50 years ago and incorporated it in a Silicon Valley that regularly raised funds for one billion dollars plus, died on Saturday. He was 89 years old.

His death was sudden and “had no long illness,” his daughter Christina Kramlich confirmed CNBC, adding that the family would soon provide more details.

“We lost a warm, curious, all optimistic family leader,” she said.

Long before the risk capitalist was a profession established, Kramlich saw the opportunity to invest some money into technological entrepreneurs and profit with them, assuming they were successful. Would put on some of his own money Apple Before joining Chuck Newhall and Frank Bonsal to start Nea in 1977, a few years after the heavy Hitters Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins opened their doors to the Menlo Park in California.

Kramlich has achieved great in computer networking, writing an early check on 3COM, which Bob Metcalfe started as a way of commercializing Ethernet technology. The company went public in 1984 and increased to evaluate over $ 28 billion During DOT-com bubbles from 2000. 3CO technology eventually bypassed products from Cisco and the other and the company was Bought hp In 2010 for $ 2.7 billion.

Somewhere else in space, Kramlich invested in Grand Junction, the co-founder of 3Com-ai saw that company until 1995 Sales of a boil. And then there was a network of force10 networks, which was acquired Dell in 2011.

“So we crossed from the very foundation of Ethernet to its becoming a dominant internet protocol for network communication,” said Kramlich Ua An interview from 2006 with an oral historian Mauree Jane Perry.

Kramlich also supported companies, including, macromydia, Ascend Communications and Juniper Networks. On the Fusion Power market Kramlich has invested in Tae technologiesand sat on the board until the day of his death.

Kramlich withdrew from Nea in 2012, approximately at the time of the company collected $ 2.6 billion For its 14th fund, one of the largest ever at the time in the industry. But he didn’t finish investing.

2017 Kramlich Launched Green Bay Ventures Invest in companies that develop technology and products in production, energy, transportation, logistics, real estate and communications. He launched Green Bay with Anthony Schiller, who in 2011 began to manage Kramlich’s family money, and Casey Tatham, who led the finances for the family office.

The company was named after the city of Wisconsin, where Kramlich was born in 1935. Kramlich’s dad launched a food chain there and his mom became an aircraft engineer. After heading as a child to Wisconsin, Kramlich went to college in the northwest and then moved to the Boston area to continue his master’s degree from Harvard’s business administration.

After a business school, Kramlich entered the world of investment in Boston and eventually met an early Apple and Intelligence Investor Arthur rock. He moved to California and helped start Arthur Rock & Co. 1969. Eight years later, Kramlich rushed to start Nea, with operations in Baltimore, Maryland and Silicon Valley.

Scott Sandell, Executive President Nea, joined the company in 1996. He said he worked as an advisor and met Kramlich after running a startup at the company, initially at the Baltimore office. His career trajectory has changed quickly, and instead of raising money to startup, he landed on to work in Nea -and stayed for almost three decades.

“It was the reason why many of us joined,” Sandell said in an interview. “Dick loved countless entrepreneurs and risk capitalists because of his unwavering optimism and persistence against really all chances. It was this spirit, along with his generous and gracious ways, made loved from perhaps any risky capital I ever knew.”

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