C. Richard Kramlich, an early investor in Silicon Valley who co-founded the New Enterprise Associates, helping to promote the flowering technology industry, died Saturday at Oakville, Calif. Napa. He was 89 years old.
His death was notified by New Enterprise Associates.
Mr. Kramlich (pronounced cram-lick), whose career lasted more than five decades, was one of the earliest Apple Computer supporters; Software companies Silicon Graphics and Macromedia; And Juniper Networks and 3Com Computer Network Companies, whose founders invented Ethernet.
He co-founded his firm, New Enterprise Associates, or Nea, building it from a $ 16 million initial fund in the 1970s to what now oversees investments of about $ 26 billion.
But he stood out among the Silicon Valley Sea of ​​Swashbuckling’s funders because of his ashes and kindness, said Scott Sandell, the leading investment official and the Nea executive chairman. “He believed the business of the entrepreneurship was a business of people and he acted accordingly,” he said.
Charles Richard Kramlich was born on April 27, 1935, in Green Bay, Wis. His father, Irvin Kramlich, was a nutrient who started a chain of 25 grocery stores that Kroger bought in 1955; His mother, Dorothy (Earl) Kramlich, was an aeronautical engineer who later oversee the family.
When he was 13, Dick followed the footsteps of his father’s venture, starting his “small company,” he said in a 2015 interview with the Museum of Computer History. “My dad encouraged me to do if I used my money, and so I bought half a light -value train from Sylvania Corporation” and resumed them from his bedroom.
He added: “I come from three generations of entrepreneurs, and after getting it to your DNA, everything else is boring.”
He attended the Northwestern University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Russian history in 1957, and continued to serve in the strategic Air Force Command Division. After receiving a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School, he went to work for Kroger, and then learned the investment cords while working for a Boston firm.
In 1969, he landed a coveted job in Arthur Rock & Co., one of the first investment firms to make high -risk betting in the start of unproven technology. He defeated more than a thousand other applicants, he said in the 2015 interview, sending Mr. Rock a handwritten letter expressing his desire to find “a bigger life there”.
In 1977, he began Nea with Chuck Newhall and Frank Bonsal, two investors he had met in Boston. The conviction of others to support their new fund took more than a year, and during that time Mr. Kramlich met a pair of entrepreneurs who were named both Steve (Jobs and Wozniak).
Their company, Apple Computer, was not as good as two other personal computer companies in the market. Kramlich in 2015. But their design of design and entrepreneurial spark were impressive. “They had pizzaz,” he said, “where the other two companies were more engineering oriented.”
He felt compelled to invest and use his money to do so. The repayment came three years later, in 1980, when Apple was released. This investment made it possible for Mr. Kramlich buy a 1927 Tudor house in San Francisco’s Presidio Heights neighborhood; He had trendy bronze apples like the door door to the front gate to remember it for the wind. (Last year he ranked the house for sale for $ 19.5 million.)
After a long time, he met Pamela Kay Palmer through a mutual friend; They were married in 1981.
Entrepreneurial capital investment has been created to absorb a lot of losses in pursuit of a home -run deal, leaving a failed beginnings on the way. But Mr. Kramlich was known for staying in trouble in trouble long after others had abandoned them.
“He said,” Never say die, “said Mr. Sandell.
In the early 1980s, foreword, the beginning of the PowerPoint software was about to finish the money, and the Nea partners refused to accumulate more. So Mr. Kramlich convinced his wife that they should take a pause at the house they were building in Stinson Beach and use the money ready to keep the company instead. Gamble was paid: In 1987, Microsoft bought preface for $ 14 million, and PowerPoint continued to become one of the most popular software programs in the world.
Financial Engines, a NEA -backed investment consulting start, took 18 years to go public and “spent five different business models,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, the company’s chief executive. Nea, he added, patiently kept her actions all the time.
Thanks to this patience and the goodness of Mr. Kramlich, the chiefs he had ceased or threatened to fire never stopped the lover from working with him.
“People do not leave a relationship with Dick with any anger,” said James Clark, a computer software founder and hardware company Silicon Graphics, whose board of directors Mr. Kramlich served. “He’s just a fundamentally good man.”
In 2002, Mr. Kramlich told Mr. Maggioncalda that he would be extracted by the end of the year if things didn’t return. But Mr. Kramlich’s distribution inspired faith than fear, Mr. Maggioncalda recalled: “He said it with calm and support.” The company recovered, and Mr. Maggioncalda led it through a public initial offer in 2010.
After Mr. Kramlich withdrew from NEA in 2012, he continued to pursue a passion for art collection. He and Ms. Kramlich were among the first private collectors to focus on new media as they appeared as a form of art in the late 1980s, and they gathered a wide collection that emphasized audio and computer art, video, film and photography . Their collection of videos and installations rose to more than 300 pcs large as they built a three-tier house in Oakville to display it.
In addition to Mrs. Kramlich, he survives two children, Christina and Richard Kramlich; a granddaughter, Mary Donna Meredith; and six grandchildren. A boy, Peter, died in 2024.
Retired, Mr. Kramlich continued to learn the founders and investors. He also started a new firm, Green Bay Ventures, with Anthony Schiller, a liquid entrepreneur of natural gas. Firm investments include databricks, the data company it; Dropbox, file storage company; and Xiaomi, Consumer Electronic Company.
In their 12 years of work together, Mr. Schiller said in a statement, he learned a lot from Mr. Kramlich.
“There will be a lot of well -deserved recognition of Dick’s legendary career,” he said. “But he was as extraordinary as a person. He taught me to dream great, loyalty, pride and approximation.”