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Case
| HBS Case Collection
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1999
(Revised from original 1999 version)
Columbia Capital Corporation: Summer 1998
by
G. Felda Hardymon and Justin D. Wasik
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Abstract
In August 1998, the partners of Columbia Capital in Arlington, Va. made a decision about whether or not to raise an outside fund for venture capital investing. Columbia had begun in 1988 as a boutique investment bank focused on the telecommunications industry, but had over its history become progressively more involved in making direct private equity investments; from 1994-98, the firm made over $100 million in such investments. Unlike traditional venture capital firms, however, Columbia made these investments entirely with its partners' own personal money.