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Venture Capital - Tuesday, January 31, 2006

DCM Doll Hops Planes From Japan To China

Dixon Doll

The Deal sets out to prove the case that many in Silicon Valley already know, that Dixon Doll and his firm DCM - Doll Capital Management know what they are doing.

Doll and his co-founder David Chao ventured into Japan in the 1990's when other firms knew that was a bad idea. The investments they may in Japan paid off in spades. DCM Doll then ventured in China early and early on it is is seeing a windfall.

The Deal does point out that DCM made some big investments in telecom that soured, but the firm's returns are still stellar. "DCM's first fund delivered a gross internal rate of return of just under 100% and a net IRR of 80%, with investors receiving about 5 times the capital invested. Doll says the firm's 1999 fund, which was in the top quartile of returns as of December 2005, according to Cambridge Associates, is aggressively harvesting now. His third, vintage 2000 fund is still making follow-on investments from its reserves."

One operational fact that we were not aware of is that Doll's mandate is for every partner to get operationally involved in every deal. We have seen that in very small VC firms but not firms the size of DCM.

And His Co-founder David Chao

Read - Timing Isn't Everything (The Deal)