Eyeing Deal Flow, Bain Capital Ventures Heads West; Opens Silicon Valley Office

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

Bain Ventures, the Boston-based venture capital arm of private equity firm of Bain Capital, has recently opened a Palo Alto office, the firm’s first presence on the West Coast.

The new office is being led by Bain partner (and former Trilogy alum) Ajay Agarwal. “We needed to be part of the ecosystem out here, and we want to build a business out here for the long term,” he explains. Agarwal says that the Palo Alto office will focus on sourcing Series A opportunities and growth capital for startups, in the range of $3 to $5 million. The fund will be investing out of Bain’s $525 million fund.

The firm will invest in mobile, commerce, social, software and infrastructure. Past investments include Color, Skyhook, and Inrix.

Agarwal says that because of Bain’s connection with the private equity world, the firm has a lot of relationships with financial institutions and is looking to help startups leverage these connections and broker these relationships. “While many venture firms have a great network up and down the 101 and 280 highways, we have relationships with large companies outside of Silicon Valley.

For now, the Palo Alto office has 6 employees but will be building out the team to a staff of 10 to 12 professionals.


Financial-organization: Bain Capital Ventures
Launch Date: 1984

Bain Capital Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital affiliate of Bain Capital, was founded with the mission of leveraging a customer focused and operational approach to helping young and growing entrepreneurial companies become market leaders. Bain Capital Ventures’ history dates back to 1984, with investments in over 110 early and growth stage companies such as Staples, DoubleClick, Aspect Development, LinkedIn, Rent the Runway, Shopping.com, Taleo, SolarWinds, Brontes Technologies, m-Qube, ProfitLogic, Network Intelligence and MinuteClinic. Bain Capital Ventures currently has ~$2...

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