Software VC Tucks Fund for UC San Diego Deals into New Venture Fund

Scopus Technology and helped to lead its IPO before Siebel Systems acquired the company. He joined Sierra Ventures in 1996.

Schwab said he agreed to create the Triton fund in part because UC San Diego is his alma mater, “and I love the school.” But there were more important reasons as well. “I’m a believer, like others, in the IP coming out of San Diego in general as well as the IP coming out of the school.” The new engineering dean, he added, “has created a structure that benefits everyone—the school, the community, and everyone. It’s a win-win-win.”

Schwab also will chair the Triton investment committee, a volunteer advisory group. The committee includes Steve Hart, a co-founder of the satellite communications company ViaSat (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VSAT]]) who graduated from UC San Diego in 1980 with a master’s in mathematics, and Paul Conley, a Paladin Capital managing partner who got his master’s in bioengineering (’96) and doctorate in mechanical engineering (’99).

The von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center will serve as a conduit by bringing new innovations and companies to the Triton investment committee. The center has helped spin out 43 companies from UC San Diego since 2002, when it was established with a $10 million gift from the William J. von Liebig Foundation. The spinouts include Ortiva Wireless, founded in 2004 to commercialize video compression technology developed by Sujit Dey, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Israel’s Allot Communications acquired Ortiva in 2012, and Dey is now the faculty director of the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center.

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.