History
Founded in 1977, O’Connor & Associates operated independently as a proprietary derivatives trading boutique until it was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation in 1995. At that time, O’Connor & Associates was one of the largest independent derivatives trading firms in the world. As part of the acquisition, the O’Connor & Associates general partners served in various leadership capacities within Swiss Bank, including CEO of North America, COO and CIO. In 1998, following the acquisition of Swiss Bank by UBS, the former general partners of O’Connor & Associates formed the O’Connor Partners Investment Office (OPIO) to manage a portion of their collective wealth in alternative assets.
Net-HOPPER, an investment made in 1994, marked the first direct venture capital investment by the OCA Ventures team. Following the success of Net-HOPPER, in 1999, Jim Dugan began making direct venture capital investments along with several former partners of O’Connor & Associates which ultimately became the building blocks known as the OCA Ventures Pledge Fund. The OCA Ventures Pledge Fund subsequently made investments in nine companies raising capital principally from OPIO on a deal-by-deal basis.
In 2001, Jim Dugan, John Dugan and Peter Ianello formed OCA Ventures I, a formal blind-pool venture capital fund with OPIO as the principal limited partner. Jason Heltzer was hired in that year to join the investment team. The team honed the fund’s investment strategy with respect to stage, industry and business models, deploying capital into 12 high-growth companies. In the process, OCA Ventures syndicated with more than 26 different institutional investors and assisted in raising in excess of $100M in follow-on equity capital.
The OCA Ventures team parlayed the success of OCA Ventures I to raise its third fund, OCA Ventures II, which is two and a half times larger than OCA Ventures I and includes outside institutional capital.
The name “OCA” pays homage to the legacy of O’Connor & Associates, which used the call letters “OCA” on their trading badges on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. Respecting that legacy, the OCA Ventures team aspires to instill the same values that made O’Connor & Associates a world-class company.
Philosophy
OCA Ventures is not just a source of capital-- it is a long-term strategic partner. As a partner, we use our resources and experience to assist on many dimensions, including capital markets, operations, financial management, recruiting, and strategy. We are very active board members, and to insure that each of our portfolio companies receives the access and support it needs, we concentrate our time and attention on a smaller group of companies per year, thereby generating disproportionally high investment returns.
We share these core beliefs regarding:
Entrepreneurs: We fundamentally back entrepreneurs and their teams and never intend to run portfolio companies ourselves. We recognize that entrepreneurs are a special breed with an unwavering level of commitment that should be rewarded handsomely when a company is successful. While we obsessively learn as much as we can about our companies’ markets, we expect the entrepreneurs we back to be experts in their company’s area of focus.
Portfolio Companies: Working side-by-side with management teams, our portfolio companies can take advantage of rapidly changing market opportunities, overcome the day-to-day challenges that confront entrepreneurs, achieve dramatic growth and eventual liquidity.
Investment Team: Venture capital is an apprenticeship business, and with this philosophy, we have grown our investment team carefully and methodically. Our goal is to have a team with exceptional multidisciplinary capabilities; our investment team possesses substantial technology, entrepreneurial, operational, financial and transactional expertise. To continue our success, we must share a passion for learning and must be devoted lifelong students.
Venture Capital: Venture capital is a critical ingredient to the “innovation economy,” which we believe is crucial to the United States’ global economic competitiveness.
Investors: Our investors have the opportunity to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns with a general partnership that is emerging as a leading venture capital firm. We believe that our substantial commitment of our own capital to the fund aligns our interest with our investors.
Relationships: Our relationships with entrepreneurs, technologists, industry experts, service providers, and sources of capital are central to our ability to assist our portfolio companies. We often partner with other leading venture capital firms to create investment syndicates that supplement our resources and provide complementary investor skill sets. Our strong relationships with many top venture firms allow us to lead and to be effective partners in an investment round.
We are dedicated to adhering to these beliefs and providing support to the entrepreneurs with whom we partner, while at the same time creating significant returns for our investors.