Capital for Start-Ups : Venture Firm Opens Branch in Costa Mesa

Orange County, which boasts one of the nation’s best economies and fastest-growing new employment rates, also is continuing to attract the venture capital companies that provide financing for some of the new businesses cropping up throughout the Southland.

The latest to be lured to the county is Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., a 7-year-old venture capital firm that added to its offices in San Francisco and Boston with a branch that opened in Costa Mesa’s Town Center complex earlier this month.

Burr Egan has $250 million under management--investors’ funds already pumped into new companies or still available for investment.

Originally set up to operate nationwide, the firm decided to open an Orange County office after discovering that nearly half its investments were made in West Coast companies, especially those in the Los Angeles basin.

“Now we’re seeing a great many start-ups in the entire region from San Diego to the San Fernando Valley, so it makes sense to open a Southern California operation as well,” said Thomas Winter, the Burr Egan general partner who will manage the Costa Mesa office.

In the last year, two other venture capital companies opened offices in Orange County, bringing the total number of venture firms with headquarters or branch offices in the county to slightly more than a dozen. And at least two major venture capital conferences have been held in county hotels in the past year.