Five Questions with Bob Ackerman of Allegis Capital
Allegis Capital is one of those venture firms that you don’t hear much about. It just quietly goes about the business of making money. It’s had some big exits in the past few years, including the sale of IronPort to Cisco for $830 million in 2007. In fact, Allegis has made it a point to focus less on taking portfolio companies public and more on positioning them for sales—which makes it well positioned in the current environment. The seed stage investor is sure to play up its M&A success now that it’s out pitching its sixth fund, which has a target of $150 million to $200 million. (Private Equity Week broke the news on Monday.) I recently spoke to Bob Ackerman, who co-founded Allegis back in 1995. He couldn’t confirm or talk about fund-raising due to SEC restrictions, but he had some interesting things to say nonetheless, particularly about venture firms that are crying in their beer about the lack of an IPO market.
