Venture Capital at the Inflection Point

“What we needed were individuals or companies called venture capitalists, or, as they were often referred to, “angel investors.” We were incredibly lucky and ended up raising $5 million of equity from the combined investments of Summit Partners and Berkshire Partners, both firms based in Boston and both relatively new companies.”

“With no financial degree and having never done anything like it before, I didn’t even know that I could get a line of credit against my accounts receivables; A/R financing was not something I had done or experienced before. But I learned fast, and as it turned out, A/R financing saved us on many occasions because we were expanding literally on the strength of our accounts receivables. In 1981, we doubled our revenues to $1.2 million.”