Garage Technology Ventures
Garage Technology Ventures is a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund looking to invest in extraordinary entrepreneurs who have the ability to build great teams and great companies.
They are willing to invest in unproven teams attacking unproven markets with unproven solutions. They’re not interested in teams that are creating another solution to the same old problem nor companies who are trying to improve things by only 10 or 20 percent.
Garage Technology Ventures started as Garage.com in October, 1997. The co-founders, Guy Kawasaki, Craig Johnson, and Rich Karlgaard, created the company in order to help entrepreneurs raise angel and venture capital.
Operating as an investment bank, over the next five years, Garage completed over 80 transactions and raised nearly $400 million for companies such as Tripwire, Claria, Lefthand Networks, and Digital Envoy. Garage also produced a highly acclaimed series of events including Bootcamp for Startups, The State of the Art, and Silicon Valley 4.0.
When the supply of early-stage venture capital dried up in 2002, Garage shifted its business model from fee-based investment banking to direct investing as a venture capital firm. Its current fund is called the Garage California Entrepreneurs Fund; CalPERS is the principle limited partner of this fund.