Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Another Collins investor

I'd like to think it would have eventually occurred to me to ask Mike Collins whether he was related to Tom and Stephen Collins, former owners of Juris. Thankfully, Mike had seen the blog on the Juris sale and mentioned the relationship when I contacted him Monday about 2nd Generational Capital LLC. Mike is CEO of the merchant-banking and VC company. Ten years ago, Mike and 2nd Gen conceptualized and capitalized Synaxis Group Inc., the property and casualty insurance brokerage. By 2002, they had sold it to now-First Horizon National Corp. for in about $60 million. (Another example of VCs not waiting on good deals from outside.) Asked whether it was genetics or some family corpus that led him, brother Tom and nephew Stephen into entrepreneurship and investing, Mike said Monday about the only thing they had in common in that context is they are all CPAs and all went through the PriceWaterhouse boot camp. Although the firm has a track record in diverse sectors, Mike stressed healthcare, bio/pharma and medical. And, he noted there's a venture in-the-offing, involving bridging data centers. BTW, 2nd Generation's portfolio news section makes clear the firm's wide network of co-investors. 2G is allied with KraftCPAs and Axis Accounting.

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