Burlingame, California – Dixon Doll, Eric Ball, and Jack Crawford announced today that they are launching a new venture capital firm named Impact Venture Capital with California investment offices in Burlingame and Sacramento. Impact Venture Capital will also host a large-scale global venture summit event this year in California at the new Golden 1 Center, widely recognized as the most high-tech arena in the world.
The firm will make investments alongside corporate venture groups in early stage information technology startups, with a focus on software and data analytics, and a commitment to serving one of four “global challenges”: security and government; energy and transportation; agriculture and health; and education and media.
To highlight this new investment thesis, Impact will host the “Impact Global Venture Summit”, an annual event scheduled for November 14th in Sacramento. Alongside event partners AT&T and the Entrepreneurs Organization, Impact Venture Capital’s event will provide a platform for dozens of high caliber tech companies to showcase their products and services in a venue designed to highlight their capabilities to an audience of angel investors, venture capital firms, and corporate venture groups.
Doll, Ball, and Crawford have a long work history of co-investing and corporate portfolio management and share a strong global professional network in the startup and venture capital industries.
Doll has spent nearly four decades in venture capital, having previously started the industry’s first fund focused on telecommunications technology at Accel. He later founded Doll Capital Management (DCM) and helped grow it to $3 billion of capital under management. DCM is widely recognized as the first Silicon Valley venture firm to enter China successfully. Doll’s firm has had extraordinary investing success, including investments in more than 20 startups that have attained valuations in excess of $1 billion. A regular on the “Midas List” which recognizes top performing VCs in the industry, Doll also served as Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and was on the Board of DirecTV for five years through its acquisition by AT&T for $49 billion.
“After attempting to retire a few times, I’m excited to get back in the game and build a new firm that has the potential to impact the lives of billions of people,” said Doll. “When you have the opportunity to work with two energetic and smart investors like Eric and Jack, why would you ever want to sit on the sidelines?”
Ball previously served as the Treasurer for Oracle Corporation, helping to manage $50 billion in assets. In his role as Treasurer, Ball was named one of the top 100 influencers in the US financial markets. He later served as CFO at C3 IoT and was the founder of Targhee Ventures where in invested in 18 startup companies.
Crawford previously managed Velocity Venture Capital and co-invested alongside of both Doll and Ball in a number of promising startups. Operating primarily inside California’s technology triangle (bounded by San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento), Velocity Venture Capital has a long history of investing in early stage companies including the first round investment in Soft Machines, recently acquired by Intel for $270 million. For the last seven years, Velocity has been running innovation programs for startups, graduate students, and corporate venture groups from across the U.S.
Both Ball and Crawford are graduates of the Kauffman Fellows program, an elite venture capital executive education program that provides two years of professional development to 40 selected Fellows each year.
“I’m thrilled to see two alum in Eric and Jack partner with a VC legend like Dixon Doll,” said Phil Wickham, Executive Chairman of the Kauffman Fellows program. “These two were peer-selected leaders of their cohort, and I’m confident that their team will have great success as they work with Kauffman’s global network of venture capitalists and corporate venture groups.”
“Access to the knowledge, professional networks and financial capital of venture investors is the lifeblood of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Without it, most startup founders lack the resources they need to scale and grow their ideas into the next generation of great American companies,” said Bobby Franklin, President and CEO of NVCA. “We congratulate the team at Impact Venture Capital on a successful launch and wish them luck as they start this journey.”
About Impact Venture Capital
Impact Venture Capital is an investment firm focused on early stage information technology startups, with a focus on software and data analytics, and a commitment to serving one of four “global challenges”: security and government; energy and transportation; agriculture and health; and education and media. The firm has California investment offices in Burlingame and Sacramento.
Dixon Doll (founder of DCM Partners and former chair of the NVCA), Eric Ball (former Treasurer of Oracle Corporation), and Jack Crawford (serial entrepreneur and founding partner of Velocity Venture Capital) serve as the firm’s General Partners.
