Boston-based venture capital and investment firm Audax Group has opened an office in Newport Beach.
“We see this as a prime spot,” said Jeremy Hogue, an associate who’s heading up the local office. “Orange County is a great place to look at opportunities. This is a perfect platform to cover the entire region.”
The year-old Audax has doled out nearly $75 million in 17 investments for its first fund. The firm’s portfolio companies include Braintree, Mass.-based Commerce.TV, which is hoping to bring interactive shopping to TV, and Hollywood-based Rampt, which provides online search and directory services to cable modem users. The firm also holds a majority stake in Santa Monica-based Artisan Entertainment, producer of “Terminator,” “Dirty Dancing” and other films.
Audax recently closed its second fund, which Hogue said could come in at $100 million. The firm already has a $500 million private equity fund and a $300 million mezzanine fund. In all, the firm has done about 30 deals.
The firm’s Newport Center office will house four people, but Hogue said he expects that to grow as the operations get set up.
“We still need to get our phone system in,” he said.
Hogue, a University of Southern California graduate, said he got his start with the firm by way of a connection he developed at college. Hogue was a three-year starter on USC’s football team in the mid-1990s.
“USC has an incredible network,” Hogue said. “You could make a living mining the USC contacts.”
After he was done with school, Hogue said he became involved in a venture capital deal with former USC quarterback Pat Haden, a partner in Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Riordan, Haden & Lewis.
“Pat has been a great friend and has been a mentor. He helped me think of this career,” Hogue said.
Hogue’s search for companies to invest in brought him to Southern California.
“I was very active in looking for opportunities in Southern California,” Hogue said.
Hogue was the fifth employee of the firm, which now has about 60 people. The firm opened an office in New York and is thinking about opening a Northern California facility.
Geoffrey S. Rehnert and Mark Wolpow started Audax Group in 1999 after they left Bain Capital, a Boston venture capital and private equity firm with $8 billion in assets under management.
“Our two managing partners walked across the street and formed Audax with some partners they had done well with in the past,” Hogue said. n
