Alan Patricof on Wallstrip

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  • on February 1st, 2008

I got to meat Alan over at the incredibly posh APAX partners offices on the east side. I remember being well behaved…a rarity.

Today Alan admits that they wanted to invest in Wallstrip . We did not want money at the time but it’s good to know.

Alan has a great track record and I have become friends with Ian Sigalow who works as an associate at Greycroft. Alley Insider has him at Number 4 in their Alley Insider 100.

4. Alan Patricof

Founder and Managing Director, Greycroft Partners

What do you do when you’ve already built a dominant global private equity firm? If you’re mogul Alan Patricof, you get bored, get out, and start all over again.

Having already developed the wildly successful Apax Partners into a global powerhouse, the supremely connected Patricof recently refocused on the start-up scene with New York-based VC firm Greycroft Partners. The firm has invested in at least 15 start-ups over the past year, including Doppelganger, K2 Network, Azureus, Ladies Who Launch, Takkle, paidContent.org, and the Huffington Post.

The genteel Patricof is still reportedly a slave-driver: He and his associates (Dana Settle from VSP Capital, Drew Lipsher, former head of M&A at IGA Records, and Ian Sigalow, once of Boston Millennia Partners) review 30-50 business plans a week. Greycroft also just had its first “exit” event, selling its stake music exchange Pump Audio and booking a 7x return in less than a year.

Patricof won’t be Twittering anytime soon (he still uses a Dictaphone), but his Outlook contact database holds 4,500 names. His portfolio company executives rave about this and almost everything else about him–an aura they sum up, simply, as “The Alan Factor.” At SAI, we just refer to him as “God.”

We have Fred Wilson, Number 3, as a regular Wallstrip guest, so we just need Barry Diller and Bloomberg and we will have gotten them all. Go to work Julie!

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