Walter “Buck” Buckley — Managing Partner of Seminal Capital Partners, Chairman & CEO of Actua Corp
Release Date: 10/23/2019
Bilt215
Dr Mike Daley has a big personality to go along with his big company exit. But his seeming overnight success was years in the making. He spent decades assembling advanced degrees and making money for Big Pharma before deciding at the ripe age of 62 to become an entrepreneur and launch his company Orthogenrx. Dr Daley literally liquidated his retirement plans, raised a few million from investors and bet the farm on importing an injection for knee pain already used widely overseas. Seizing the opportunity to exploit a rarely used FDA process loophole he was able to fast track the approvals and...
info_outline Dan Dimitri - Project Manager at Kaiser Permanente and McKessonBilt215
After spending 20+ years as a project manager for giants Kaiser Permanente and McKesson he paused to find a problem that he could solve with a new business. He took a deep dive into interviewing clients to find aches and pains that he could capitalize on. After much research and a chance encounter with an investor-backer he launched PharmaForce with the mission to deliver flexible technology solutions for pharmacies, providers and patients demanding greater transparency and lower costs. After a mere 7 years he recently had a very successful exit to a PE firm. Tune in to hear Dan’s story on...
info_outline Sylvester Mobley — Founder and CEO of Coded by KidsBilt215
Sylvester Mobley is the Founder and CEO of the youth tech education non-profit, Coded by Kids. Through his organization he works to increase access to tech education opportunities for those who are underrepresented in tech, especially children of color. Under his leadership, Coded by Kids has grown from serving fewer than 15 children in a rec center to serving more than 500 students per week. Tech has a lot of great benefits but there are still groups of people being locked out of it.
info_outline Felicite Moorman — CEO of STRATIS IoTBilt215
Felicite Moorman is the CEO and co-Founder of STRATIS IoT, the only Sidewalk to Sofa® Intelligent Building Solution built for Multifamily and Student Housing. STRATIS helps create smart apartments and intelligent buildings built for the complexities of split multi-family and student housing. Serving over 325,000 apartments in the US, and over 18,000 internationally, STRATIS is poised for more growth in the future.
info_outline Mahe Bayireddi — Co-Founder and CEO of Phenom PeopleBilt215
Mahe Bayireddi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Phenom People, a global HR technology company with a mission to help 1 billion people find the right job. With over 200 million people using the product in 140 countries, including 50 of the Fortune 500 companies, Mahe is well on his way to achieving his goal of revolutionizing the talent life cycle through technologies, specifically AI.
info_outline Nader Elm — Co-Founder and CEO of Exyn TechnologiesBilt215
Nader Elm is the Co-Founder and CEO of Exyn Technologies, a commercialization of the technology spun out of GRASP Labs (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania). Since its founding in 2014, Exyn has become the world leader in autonomous data acquisition using drone technology.
info_outline Bill Yoh — Co-Owner of Day and Zimmermann, Author, Chairman of Yoh GroupBilt215
Bill Yoh is the youngest of five children born to Spike Yoh. Bill's grandfather, Harold, helped build the Philadelphia-based business that is now in its 5th generation, Day & Zimmermann. Founded in 1901 as a fledgling staffing company for engineers, it has grown into a massive organization of 45,000 employees globally and nearly $3 billion in revenue, making it one of the biggest privately held companies in the US and the world.
info_outline Mike Hagan — Founder, Operator, Investor and CEO of Hawk CapitalBilt215
Mike Hagan is a founder, operator and wildly successful investor in a variety of companies. He has repeatedly proven his ability to create or invest in a company, scale it and successfully exit. His venture was the B2B procurement WebHost VerticalNet, which hit a market capital peak of $11 billion. Unfortunately, Vertical Net ended in flames like many other dot.com companies at the turn of the millennium.
info_outline Bob Moore — Serial Entrepreneur and CEO of CrossbeamBilt215
Bob Moore is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience, who started his first business venture when he was at Princeton. In the early 2000s, as online poker was becoming popular, Bob jumped on an observation he made to create the Mooraculator to computerize what his peers were calculating in their heads to level the playing field for others who wanted to make money playing poker.
info_outline Dean Miller — President and CEO of PACTBilt215
Dean Miller has been a venture capitalist for over 20 years, with particular interest in the healthcare technology and innovations space. Brought up in upstate New York, his early experiences shaped him for independence and entrepreneurship. Dean served as Managing Director at Novitas Capital, where he focused on venture capital investments across healthcare and technology.
info_outlineWalter “Buck” Buckley is the Managing Partner of Seminal Capital Partners, an investment company that focuses on cloud-based software and service businesses, and the Chairman and CEO Of Actua Corp, formerly Internet Capital Group (ICG). Buck has a passion for people and the unique ability to dream an idea and help a team to execute it. On this interview, Buck recounts his experiences starting with his nine-year tenure at Safeguard Scientifics, a venture capital firm founded by Pete Musser. He tells of his experiences during the recession of 1991, how he was inspired to strike out on his own to start the ICG after observing an emerging market with the help of Pete Musser. Eventually, after seeing significant success and surviving the stock market crash, ICG transitioned to Actua Corp. Buck shares some of his key takeaways from his experiences, and some of the investments they made then. Today, as Buck’s focus has shifted slightly with Seminal Capital Partners, and he shares more about what excites him about his company, Philadelphia as a market, and the future. Tune in to find out more.
Key Takeaways:
[2:01] Kevin starts off the interview with a speed round with Buck.
[6:41] Kevin gives a brief history of Safeguard Scientific.
[8:58] What was Safeguard like when Buck first joined, and how did his role change in the 9 years he worked at Safeguard?
[12:59] Buck shares his experience with the 1991 recession and how that spawned Safeguard.
[16:38] Who were part of the "Safeguard Mafia"? This impressive team was attributed to Pete's ability to attract talent.
[18:19] How did Buck and Ken start ICG?
[23:07] What was Pete's sense for the potential of the Internet?
[23:47] Buck talks about the early stages of the ICG journey.
[25:58] Buck elaborates on the seed, build, sell model that ICG adopted in its investments.
[27:20] What was the environment like to raise capital in that time?
[28:31] What was the focus of the investments that Buck and his team made at that time?
[29:49] The company went public in 1999. When did the team make that decision? Buck reveals the events leading up to the rise to $60 million.
[35:16] How did Buck deal with the meltdown that came after they hit the peak?
[38:51] What are Buck's thoughts on whether there are parallels in the crypto and cannabis markets to Tulipmania?
[40:08] 2001-2002 were the darkest years of Buck's life. He explains why.
[44:42] What is Buck's position on debt?
[48:40] What was Pete's role during the difficult times?
[50:46] When did Buck make the switch to Actua? He shares some of the investments they made.
[54:59] What is Instamed?
[56:42] The regulatory environment changed drastically post-2010. Buck eventually threw in the towel and delisted the company.
[59:23] What excites Buck about Seminal and what is his current focus?
[1:01:54] How competitive is the space that Seminal is in, and why is Seminal more appealing than its competitors?
[1:05:03] What is Buck's advice to his younger self?
[1:07:00] What's Buck's opinion on whether entrepreneurs are born or made?
[1:08:33] How important was the Philadelphia region to Buck's success, and what does he think of its potential?
[1:11:48] If Buck were mayor or governor, what are some things he would change immediately?
Links: