The Wall Street Journal
( Monday November 29 1999 )

Starting Gate

By LISA BRANSTEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The New Dell

A new computing style meets a new investor. MyWebOS.com Inc. (www.mywebos.com), a closely watched Baltimore start-up, has attracted the first investment from a firm being established by Adam Dell, younger brother of Dell Computer Corp.'s billionaire founder. Mr. Dell's Impact Venture Partners is joining a $10 million funding round led by Grotech Capital Group, which put in $5 million.

MyWebOS, which opens for business this week, developed technology that helps run programs through a Web browser rather than from software loaded on personal computers. It plans to offer a raft of programs on its Web site for free, including a word processor, spreadsheet and database, and work with partners to rent other programs to small and medium-size businesses.

Mr. Dell, 29 years old, was at the Silicon Valley firm Crosspoint Venture Partners, but a few weeks ago moved to New York to focus on financing Internet companies that sell to other businesses. The Big Apple, he says, is less crowded with venture capitalists "who focus on early-stage investments and there are a lot of operational people who have great business-to-business experience." He plans to raise $50 million, a small part of which will come from brother Michael's investment group, MSD Capital.

But the two firms will work closely together, Adam Dell says. Impact will focus on early-stage deals and then show them to MSD, which concentrates on investing in more mature companies.