TrueBridge Capital In The News

New Job for Endowment Manager
The News & Observer
May 16, 2007
Mel Williams, who helps manage money for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's endowment, is leaving to establish an investment firm that is seeking $250 million from investors.

PE Week Wire
April 4, 2007
Tons of top-level personnel moves in the LP arena this week. The most notable is that Mel Williams of UNC and Edwin Poston of the Rockefeller Foundation have teamed up to form a new shop called TrueBridge Capital. The Chapel Hill-based shop already has begun marketing a VC fund-of-funds with a target of around $250 million, with other types of funds expected to follow. I’m working on a print piece about TrueBridge, which will use part of its GP carry to help build up the Kauffman Fellows Program’s endowment. Not only does Kauffman want to expand overseas, it also has considered accepting Fellows for positions with limited partners.

Endowment Pros Form Firm With Help From Kauffman Fellows
VentureWire
April 3, 2007
By Laura Kreutzer
Senior investment professionals from UNC Management Co. and the Rockefeller Foundation have joined the growing ranks of endowment managers setting up their own shop. Mel Williams, vice president of UNC Management Co., which oversees the roughly $1.5 billion endowment for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Edwin Poston, head of private equity at the Rockeller Foundation, which manages around $3.7 billion in assets, have formed Truebridge Capital Partners, according to a press release. The firm will be based in Chapel Hill, N.C., and the two men will remain with their respective organizations over the next several weeks to help ease the transition. The new firm has also entered into a strategic relationship with the Center for Venture Education, the nonprofit institution that manages the Kauffman Fellows Program, a one-year mentoring program designed to train venture capitalists. Neither Williams nor Poston would comment on the firm's plans. However, it is likely that Truebridge will roll out a venture fund of funds with the aim of using the management fees generated to help support the fellows program, according to a person familiar with the Fellows program. The person added that the firm could also raise other types of funds of funds down the road. The release did state that through the relationship, the Center for Venture Education hopes to enhance the funding of a long-term endowment, to ensure the financial stability and independence of itself and the Kauffman Fellows Program. Since it was launched in 1993, the program has graduated roughly 90 participants that have gone on to build careers at blue chip venture firms that include Austin Ventures, Battery Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and U.S. Venture Partners. Back in 2000, the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership spun out management of the Kauffman Fellows program, according to sister publication The Private Equity Analyst, which covered the spin out. At the time, some 35 alumni of the fellows program agreed to pony up $3.5 million in initial funding to keep the program going, although it remains unclear how large the endowment has grown today. At the time, the organization said that it was considering raising a venture fund of funds that would draw on relationships with the program's alumni. Williams and Poston join a growing list of senior ranking investment pros from endowments that have left to launch their own firms. Most recently, former chief investment officers from The Duke Endowment and Duke Management Co., which manages the Duke University endowment, left to launch Global Endowment Management. Reach the Center for Venture Education at 913-648-0002.