Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: David Harris Kolada

There are many ways to skin the proverbial corporate venturing cat, and OpenText, a Canada-based enterprise information management company turning more than $2bn of revenue per year, has taken its commitments to approach one stage further by investing in a fund of funds.

David Harris Kolada, vice-president of venture capital and corporate development at OpenText, said its “focus right now is on signing partnerships with companies from the portfolios of the VC funds in which we have invested”.

He added: “I manage a $100m portfolio of investments in six VC funds, including the OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund, Sierra Ventures Funds X and XI, Northleaf Venture Capital Fund, Teralys Capital Innovation Fund and the Kensington Venture Fund [the last three being funds of funds].

“I hold OpenText’s seat on the limited partner advisory committee for all six funds, and I am the chairman of the OpenText Enterprise Apps Fund limited partner advisory committee.

“I am also leading the creation and implementation of a direct investment program at OpenText, which will include co-investments with VC fund managers in the portfolio and investments from other sources.

“As a member of OpenText’s corporate development team [run by Doug Parker], I help support the company’s active M&A strategy through market insight from the VC ecosystem, due diligence assistance, and potential M&A incubation through engagement with companies before they reach OpenText’s M&A profile.”

Harris Kolada joined OpenText in 2015 with close to 25 years of experience in venture capital, technology company management and investment banking.

He has held several senior management positions, including senior vice-president of corporate development and chief financial officer at Eloqua, acquired by database provider Oracle, and senior director of strategic investment at Cognos, acquired by IBM, a role which encompassed both CVC as well as M&A, Harris Kolada said.

He added: “Most recently, I managed the market transaction team at Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a $1bn cleantech fund, facilitating more than 115 SDTC portfolio company market transactions valued at approximately $1bn.

“Previously, I gained experience in venture capital investment management at Jefferson Partners, where, as a partner, I jointly managed over $200m of assets. I began my career as an investment banker both on Bay Street, Toronto, and Wall Street, New York.

“Having worked in Venture Capital, Corp Dev and VC-backed companies for the majority of my career, I was keen to start up and lead a CVC unit at the largest software company in Canada and the leading enterprise information management vendor globally.

“Many CVC units are headed up initially by internal hires with no VC experience. OpenText chose to bring in someone from outside the company with deep VC experience – a better approach in my opinion.”

He said it was still early days for CVC at OpenText but some early wins included its first go-to-market partnership agreement with an undisclosed portfolio company last month and navigating a key-person event at a fund – the departure of general partner – where it is the lead LP.

Naturally, Harris Kolada said there had been challenges, including “prioritising VC-related deals amongst the tyranny of urgent matters related to core business, for example, product development for core platform, other partnerships, quarter-end issues and high volume of M&A – five deals for a purchase price of over $2bn in 2016”.

Harris Kolada said his ambition was supporting “awesome entrepreneurs to build segment-leading companies” and recommended the industry “make and keep long-term commitments to the market, invest throughout the cycle, and support portfolio companies beyond things that help the CVC parent corporation’s short-term objectives”.

In his spare time, he goes on “short-term mission trips to help at an orphanage and build housing for dirt-poor families” and coaches his son’s little league baseball team. While he admits that “Canadians are modest as a rule”, his accomplishments have talked louder than his reticence.