Trifecta! Healthy Living Venture Capital, Investment Banking and Consulting

I've been joking lately that no one told me when you move to Maine, you end up with several, concurrent jobs.  Well, five years after relocating to Portland from Boston, I now carry three business cards:

• Silverwood Partners (Investment Banking), Managing Director Advisor
• Royal River Associates (Consulting), Principal/Founder
• CEI Community Ventures (Venture Capital), Principal

Most of my work (under all three hats) is focused on the Healthy Living sector (which I generally defined as driven by consumer trends espousing healthy, active and sustainable living -- such as nutrition, natural/organic foods, active sports, fitness, wellness, weight management, sustainable living...).  This is a sector for which I have great passion and where I have focused the majority of my career building expertise and contacts over the past few years.  That said, under Royal River Associates, I will also entertain an occasional growth strategy project of a more general nature, per my Bain & Co. background.  

How did I end up with more than one job?  I moved to Vacationland in 2004 to join a venture capital firm, CEI Community Ventures.  The fund started operations in March 2003, which means that it will last until 2013.  It's a relatively small fund, and I am one of two investment professionals.  We made investments in nine companies, seven of which are currently active.  Since September 2007, the fund has been fully invested (no investments in new companies; only follow-on investments in current portfolio companies, to the extent the fund has remaining capital reserved for those companies).  Venture capital firms are operated by management companies (CEI Community Ventures, Inc. -- in this case -- manages CEI Community Ventures Fund LLC).  When a fund is fully invested, the management company typically raises a new, follow-on fund.  This means that the management company (and its employees) manage two funds simultaneously (mange out the first while investing the second) and take management fees from both.  In the current economic environment, raising follow-on funds may take longer than in typical times.  So, while I continue to manage my responsibilities with the portfolio of CEI Community Ventures, I am broadening my repertoire with both investment banking and consulting, in order to stay active in the market.

To do this I founded Royal River Associates (RRA), a consulting firm, earlier this year.  Before entering venture capital, I was a management consultant with Bain & Co., Inc., regarded as one of the best consulting firms in the world for which to work.  It was a terrific training ground.  With RRA, I work with both early-stage and later-stage companies on a variety of issues (growth strategy, business planning, financial planning, etc.).  But if I just did RRA, I would no be able to help companies with one of their most important needs and the thing that I have spent the majority of the last five years doing: assisting companies raise capital and advising companies on the sell side to achieve liquidity for management and investors.  That is where Silverwood Partners comes in.

I am very happy to announce that I have joined Silverwood Partners as a Managing Director Advisor (see press release). Silverwood Partners is a sector-focused investment bank that provides M&A and private capital raising advisory services.  The firm delivers acquisition, divestiture or corporate sale advisory, strategic-financial advisory and institutional financing services to companies in targeted business sectors.  My focus with Silverwood will be consumer in general, and Healthy Living consumer in particular.  My crash courses to pass the Series 7 and Series 63 exams are now over (success! and not fun) and I am now applying my deep industry relationships with the venture capital and private equity industry as well as angel investor and strategic buyer/investor contacts to work.  

And I can do it all from the great state of Maine...