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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Venture Fund To Focus on Santa Clarita

The Santa Clarita Valley’s efforts to create a tech community will get a financial boost in the coming months. Alan Lewis, a resident of the city, along with two partners are creating a venture capital group to provide funding for startups. “The consensus seems to be that it’s a good time and place to give it a try,” Lewis said. “Given my background experience, not only as a corporate financial professional but as an entrepreneur, I was like, ‘Let’s give it a try.’” Golden Valley Ventures is seeking to have between $5 million and $20 million in funding available. Along with Lewis, the other partners are Saurabh Suri, of CerraCap Ventures, and Robyn Siers, an attorney, who lives in Santa Clarita. Lewis is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Aeon Group, an investment fund based in Middletown, N.J. He relocated back to Santa Clarita last year after living for five years on the East Coast. When he moved back, he was surprised at the change that had taken place in the community – namely the number of startups. It was a different environment than he had found when he lived in the city in the early- to mid-2000s. He thought about starting a venture capital fund or angel funding group, but it was an idea that didn’t take off, Lewis said, adding, “everybody thought I was insane at the time.” Once back in the city, Lewis said he began to make contacts. They included Jason Crawford, the city’s planning, marketing and economic development manager; Tania Mulry, a tech entrepreneur and organizer of the Santa Clarita chapter of One Million Cups, a networking group; Calvin Hedman, an accountant and president of Hedman Partners; and Holly Schroeder of the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corp. Additionally, he reached out to investment groups like Tech Coast Angels, Pasadena Angels and Santa Barbara Angel Alliance. After talking with all these people, Lewis decided to take the plunge with Golden Valley Ventures, a name chosen as a nod to the area being the place where gold was first discovered in the state. The investment strategy of the group is not a typical one, however. Instead of going after young, fast-driven entrepreneurs willing to burn through cash, the group seeks to invest in stable, mature, slower-paced and family-oriented business owners. The ideal candidate would be someone like Ajay Kapur, founder of Nirveda Cognition Inc., a tech company using artificial intelligence to analyze company data. It is a company backed with seed money from CerraCap; the fund later raised $1.6 million. Lewis is a member of the company’s advisory board. “He fits the archetype of the kind of entrepreneur we are looking for,” Lewis said. “He just had his first child, mid 40s, moved to Santa Clarita because he could afford to buy a house here.”

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