Vosht Capital hopes to shake up Orange County’s funding ecosystem.
The upstart Newport beach-based investment vehicle includes venture capital, private equity and real estate, with a self-described focus on opportunistic investing in a variety of companies and product types.
As VCers, Vosht plans to invest $1 million to $5 million bridge capital or Series A to companies that are in-revenue and ready to scale. It hasn’t announced how much it has to spend on those types of deals.
It’s an important, but neglected, subsector for the region, several investors have told the Business Journal.
They pointed out that while the county is good for seed capital, companies most often seek further funding elsewhere—Los Angeles, San Diego and Silicon Valley—when it comes to larger Series A offerings.
Vosht Chief Executive Dmitriy Chebotarev said his company is especially interested in what he describes as “B to P,” or business-to-public sector, opportunities.
“There are some [public] sectors that never cease to exist,” he said, including “military, education [and] infrastructure—local, state or federal contracts.”
Chebotarev said it’s not as competitive because there is a higher barrier of entry for securing those contracts.
The company did not disclose fund size.
Education Focus
He said the company’s most recent investment in Seattle-based MIDAS Education LLC is a good example of the type of opportunities it’s interested in.
MIDAS, short for Massively Integrated Data Analytics System, is designed to combine the capability of 17 different software systems that schools traditionally buy. Services provided include curricular and assessment resources, parent communication and accountability, assessment analytics, as well as district and student information management.
The amount of money Vosht invested in MIDAS was undisclosed.
MIDAS works with charter schools funded by the government, Chebotarev said.
Founder and Chief Executive Megan Harney graduated from Harvard University and studied entrepreneurship and education reform.
Its website lists clients that include: the Rockport Public Schools in Rockport, Mass., the Utah State Board of Education, the Clark County School District in Las Vegas and the Community Consolidated School District 59 in Arlington Heights, Ill.
Chebotarev said his firm has introduced MIDAS to several schools in Orange County, including those in the Irvine Unified School District and Santa Ana Unified School District.
Mensa, Bitcoin
Vosht Capital was previously known as Oxford Investment Partners LLC. It made the name change in October because “Oxford is a very generic name.”
The firm continues to be anchored by the three managing partners: Chebotarev, Chief Operating Officer Hunter Slay and Chief Technology Officer Brian Arandez.
The company said earlier this year it was starting a “$50 million proprietary fund that [would] become the first of its kind to use bitcoin or BTC as a currency to invest in venture capital.”
The progress of that fund hasn’t been announced.
Vosht, which invested in five deals last year, is seeking to add more junior partners to the firm, according to Chebotarev.
The 20-something executive previously worked at DaVita Healthcare Partners.
His company’s website notes that Chebotarev is a member of Mensa and the Triple Nine Society—a pair of groups for members with high IQs.
