DCA Partners, Northstar Investors, Sierra Angels become neighbors

Virtual companies may be all the rage, but a trio of northern Nevada organizations involved in matching capital with businesses think there's a lot to be said for shooting the breeze around the water cooler, too.

The three organizations Sierra Angels, DCA Partners and Northstar Investors decided to take offices next to one another in a south-Reno office park.

There's nothing more to it than that, no partnerships or formal agreements, but executives of all three say they expect improved results simply from their physical proximity.

While Sierra Angels is an Incline Village-based organization of investors in early-stage companies, about a third of its 50 members live in Reno.

DCA Partners, a private-equity firm headquartered in Roseville, Calif., this spring launched a northern Nevada office headed by Trent Gordon and Dusty Wunderlich. The firm looks to make direct investments into growing companies with annual revenues of $10 million to $150 million, and it provides investment banking counsel as well.

Northstar Investors provides advisory services to established businesses and sometimes buys them outright. The firm is operated by Stuart Feigin, Chris Howard and Randolph Townsend.

Gordon said informal conversations between principals of the three firms are likely to help them identify potential candidates for services ranging from startup capital to merger-and-acquisition counsel.

Added Wunderlich, "The fun part of this business is when you get to connect the dots. The more minds you put together, the more dots you will connect."

Bob Goff, who heads Sierra Angels, noted the group's 50 members include executives with experience in a wide range of industries expertise that can be put to use by DCA Partners and Northstar Investors as well.

Howard said the three groups also hope to routinely tap the entrepreneurial of the Economic Development Authority of Northern Nevada and the University of Nevada, Reno.

Another mergers-and-acquisition specialist is likely to join the three organizations in the informal arrangement, and Howard said more would be welcomed.