Guy Naggar came to Washington last year as a passionate art collector and left the nation’s capital a newly minted trans-Atlantic venture capitalist.
The French-born chairman of Dawnay Day Lander, a London financial services company, Mr. Naggar was at the Hirschhorn Gallery in October to show a work by the 20th-century painter Lucien Freud. Though the works by the grandson of Sigmund Freud held his fancy that day, he also had in his pocket the prospectus for his firm’s planned Internet incubator, and a colleague’s recommendation that he look up one Emanuel Friedman.
“Manny” Friedman is the chairman of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group (FBR), the Arlington-based finance firm whose name seems ubiquitous in the Washington technology set. And Mr. Friedman, having made the firm into a major regional player, was ready to take the plunge overseas.
“I had no notion at all that FBR was ready to go into Europe,” Mr. Naggar said. “But within a few minutes of talking with Manny, I knew there was a natural connection.”
After the meeting, senior executives got to work, and by December, the two companies had inked a deal, the American firm’s first abroad. FBR would bring to the table its experience in early-stage funding of Northern Virginia Internet and telecommunications start-ups, while Dawnay Day Lander would keep its fingers on the pulse of British entrepreneurs.
“Our philosophy was to find a U.S. partner,” said Jonathan Lander, managing director of Dawnay Day Lander. “In Internet ventures, if you don’t find a U.S. partner, you’re in trouble.”
“Our strategy is to be in London, in the middle of the deal flow,” echoed Bob Smith, FBR’s chief operating officer. “And when the start-ups happen, we will be there.”
The venture capital industry, that indispensable midwife to Northern Virginia’s thriving technology industry, is headed across the Atlantic and over the Pacific, and not on the slow boat either. Usually with the help of foreign partners, Washington-area financiers are putting down roots overseas where Internet and telecommunications companies are ready to blossom, eager to replicate their successes back home.
“Venture capital is going global as we speak,” said Philip Garfinkle, president of Yazam, an Israeli-American company that gives new technology companies both money and assistance to get a quick leg up. Yazam opened an office in Reston earlier this month.
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