Ask Walter Schindler about where he came up with the names for his Odyssey or Sail venture funds, and the lawyer turned venture capitalist rolls his eyes bashfully, trying to deflect questions.
The fact is Schindler’s a hopeless literary romantic.
He’s translated Italian authors Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio into English and searched for hidden biblical references in English poet John Milton’s works.
Schindler’s also published a book of poems and proposed to his wife-to-be at sunset along the Seine River.
Meanwhile, Schindler just raised $16 million for his new Sail Venture Partners LLC fund, which plans to target alternative energy startups. His hope is to add $20 million by the end of July and be at $150 million over time.
Sail, and its predecessor fund, Odyssey Venture Partners LLC, have been among the more active venture investors in Orange County since launching in 1999.
With Odyssey, Schindler invested in Irvine-based Oryxe Energy International Inc., a maker of a diesel fuel additive used to cut down on emissions, and Denver-based IQNavigator Inc., a workforce management software company.
Schindler’s set to go after alternative and clean energy companies with his latest fund.
“The companies must have a very large market opportunity, outstanding management and unique intellectual property,” Schindler said. “Those are the successful things I look for.”
Sail opened a Washington, D.C., office in February and added a fifth partner, Hank Habicht, a former No. 2 official with the Environmental Protection Agency during the first President George Bush’s administration.
Schindler’s venture work has roots in personal tragedy. His brother, father and mother died in the late 1990s.
At the time, Schindler ran the Orange County office of Los Angeles-based Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LP, where he advised on mergers, worked on initial public offerings and did deals for emerging companies.
Schindler said he left Gibson, Dunn to form Odyssey because of emotions stirred by the family deaths, work stress and a broken marriage.
His religious side comes from the Catholic schools he attended in New Orleans, where his oratory skills won him a state debate contest.
Kingman Brewster Jr., who ran Yale University from 1964 to 1977, found Schindler while looking for future leaders with “constructive impact on society.”
Schindler earned a Yale doctorate in English literature in two years in 1977. His dissertation-turned-book “Voice and Crisis: Invoca-tion in Milton’s Poetry” wasn’t a New York Times bestseller. But his doctorate was among the fastest a Yale student has earned since the university’s School of Fine Arts began handing them out in 1869.
“You can say with confidence that it is highly unusual,” Yale spokeswoman Gila Reinstein said.
Much later came Schindler’s 1990 book of poetry, “The Napoleon House.”
His parents wanted him to become a lawyer, Schindler said. But he preferred reading T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” or Homer’s “Odyssey.”
Schindler later tapped the title for his Odyssey venture fund.
The “Sail” name of his second venture fund is a reference to the ship that Odysseus used in his travels in “Odyssey.” A golden-colored sail is the logo for both funds.
Schindler said his career path shaped up between Yale and Harvard Law School.
At Harvard, Archibald Cox Jr., the solicitor general under President John F. Kennedy and later the first special prosecutor for Watergate, became Schindler’s mentor.
“He stood for the proposition that a man can become a real man by living a life of integrity,” Schindler said of Cox.
