Second Avenue Partners

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Second Avenue Partners is a venture capital firm based out of Seattle, Washington focused on emerging Internet businesses in the high-tech field.

Second Avenue Partners was founded in February 2000 by former Starwave CEO Mike Slade, former Microsoft vice president Pete Higgins, and former McCaw Cellular executive Keith Grinstein Keith Grinstein, and former aQuantive founder Nick Hanauer. The firm does not follow the traditional venture capital fund model, and the partners invest only their own money on new ventures. This allows the partners to act collectively or independently of the group, choosing how much or how little to invest on new prospects. While the firm’s venture fund is directed primarily at Internet startups, it’s portfolio depicts a diverse spectrum of investments including Newsvine (acquired by MSNBC), FanNation (acquired by Sports Illustrated), Imagekind^[1], Revenue Science, the Insitu Group, HouseValues, Inc., and Modumetal. In 2008, Second Avenue Partners joined with Zillow.com co-founder Rich Barton and Curious Office Partners to back Fanzter, a Connecticut startup that plans to launch a new online consumer service called Coolspotters.com^[2].