Costa Mesa-based venture capital firm CerraCap Ventures LLC, one of the area’s top investors in tech firms, is winning kudos from its early investors.
John C. Cushman, the former chairman of commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, said he was the first investor in CerraCap and received “a very nice check” last month for an amount he declined to disclose.
While attending a CerraCap presentation on Dec. 14 at the Beverly Hills Montage, Cushman was asked why he invested in the VC firm.
“I talked to them a lot before I made the investment,” he told the Business Journal’s Peter J. Brennan, who profiled the company in the Sept. 10, 2018 issue. “These are very, very smart people.”
The company was co-founded in 2015 by Chief Executive Saurabh Ranjan and Chief Investment Officer Saurabh Suri.
At the presentation, Ranjan raved about a 4.3 times return made in 18 months on an investment in Swych, a Texas-based 2016 startup that designed a mobile app to help people consolidate money on gift cards into one place. It recently received a 51% investment that puts the company’s value at $40 million.
Swych founder Deepak Jain, who has previously sold two companies, said in an interview that he doesn’t accept investments from just anyone, but wants “smart money” investors with connections in the industry.
Ranjan, whose fund now has $45 million in assets under management, said he’d invest in “anything” that Jain does in the future.
The event at the hotel rooftop ballroom attracted several prominent guests including Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido and Sajan Pillai, founder and chief executive of Aliso Viejo-based UST Global Inc., where Ranjan and Suri used to work. In 2012, UST struck a partnership with Fox to build and service a presidential library and economic development center for his nonprofit think tank, Centro Fox, in his home state of Guanajuato in central Mexico.
Five chief executives of startups that CerraCap invested in made presentations outlining their backgrounds, products and plans.
During the event, Suri couldn’t hide his excitement about Deep Instinct, a Palo Alto and Tel Aviv-based company that makes software to detect unknown malware.
CerraCap invested in Deep Instinct when its valuation was around $15 million. It soared to about $110 million by last September when Ranjan predicted a 7 to 8 times return.
Deep Instinct’s valuation most likely exploded in value after it was announced in November that rival Cylance Inc. of Irvine was being sold for $1.4 billion to Blackberry Ltd.
CoreLogic Completes Deals
Irvine-based analytics and data provider CoreLogic Inc. closed two buys in the last few weeks of the year.
The company on Dec. 17 finalized its deal for HomeVisit from Breakaway Holdings LLC on undisclosed terms.
HomeVisit, based in Chantilly, Va., provides real estate marketing services, including property listing photography, videography, 3D modeling and drone imagery.
It operates in the mid-Atlantic region and will target over 800,000 real estate professionals under the CoreLogic banner.
“The combination of CoreLogic and HomeVisit is highly synergistic and allows us to continue to grow and expand the HomeVisit product suite on a national scale,” CoreLogic Chief Executive Frank Martell said in a statement.
Three days after completing the Homevisit deal, CoreLogic closed a $117 million acquisition of Toronto-based Symbility Solutions Inc.
Toronto-based Symbility develops cloud-based, property claims workflow software for the property and casualty insurance industry. Under the deal, CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) acquired 72% of the company’s outstanding shares it didn’t own. It will operate as an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary.
CoreLogic shares fell 28% last year, recently trading at about $33 and a $2.7 billion market cap as of press time.
WDC Seeking CFO
Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC), which maintains a large presence in Irvine, is on the hunt for a chief financial officer.
Mark Long, who’s held the top finance post since 2016, will leave the San Jose-based memory products maker on June 1 to become a private equity investor. He was hired in 2013 as chief strategic officer.
His departure won’t come as a loss for the local operation since he’s based in the San Francisco area, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The company, which shifted its corporate designation to Silicon Valley in 2016 but still maintains a sizeable Irvine office, clocked in at No. 52 among the largest local employers in OC with 1,516 workers through October, according to Business Journal research. Western Digital has cut about 200 local jobs in the past few years.
Western Digital is the world’s largest drive maker with sales of $20.6 billion in the fiscal year ended in June.
