OCA Ventures, a 20-year-old Chicago-based venture capital firm, is heading west with the opening of an office in Silicon Valley.
OCA announced that it has hired Kevin McQuillan, a longtime venture investor and co-founder of Focus Ventures, to lead the firm's West Coast operations. McQuillan, a five-time member of Forbes' “Midas List,” a ranking of the top venture capital investors, previously led investments in startups such as Sensity (acquired by Verizon) and Paydiant (acquired by PayPal). More than 20 of McQuillan’s startup investments have gone public.
Focus Ventures, based in Palo Alto, has invested $850 million in technology companies across three funds since launching in 1996.
The addition of McQuillan and the opening of an office in the Valley have less to do with increasing OCA's investments in West Coast startups, and more about adding value to the firm's existing portfolio companies, OCA CEO Jim Dugan explained. Having a physical presence in Silicon Valley will help the firm strengthen its relationships with larger venture firms who can provide expansion capital to OCA's portfolio companies as they grow.
"We’ve been doing business now in venture for 20 years. The heartbeat of the ecosystem is in the Valley," Dugan said. "This expansion for us is a continuation of us being able to add value to our portfolio companies, particularly for those later-stage rounds."
OCA, which is investing out of its fourth fund, invests in Seed, Series A and Series B rounds. Its notable exits include Cleversafe (acquired by IBM), Tenor (acquired by Google) and TradeKing (acquired by Ally Financial). It also scored a win last year after DocuSign's IPO. OCA invested in Cartavi, a Chicago-area software startup, which was acquired by DocuSign in 2013.
