Bonsal will return to venture capital, ending a six-year spell as director of venture creation at Towson through which he was credited with the realignment of its incubator.
Frank Bonsal (pictured) is to stand down as director of venture creation at Towson University to become a managing partner at Bonsal Partners, the education and healthcare-focused venture capital firm founded by his father, Technical.y reported yesterday.
Bonsal will depart the university on April 12, but plans to continue supporting the university’s entrepreneurship strategy as a mentor.
He became director of venture creation at Towson University in 2013, taking responsibility for the university’s incubator program – then under the banner TowsonGlobal.
Bonsal oversaw the initiative’s rebrand as Towson University Incubator (TU Incubator), charting an edtech and entrepreneurship-led realignment focused on harnessing Towson’s pedigree in teacher education and supporting the ecosystem in Capital Region of Maryland.
TU Incubator has assisted 83 companies during the past five-and-a-half years, 62 of which are targeting education-orientated applications. In its last five years under the TowsonGlobal moniker, the incubator had supported a total of 22 businesses.
Bonsal said: “The shift to an industry that the ecosystem needed and where the university has a great deal of authentic alignment was key to the incubator’s more recent growth and impact.”
By joining Bonsal Partners, Bonsal is returning to the firm which was the stage for the beginning of his venture capital career in 2001. Bonsal started there as an associate, before receiving a promotion to the position of partner six-and-a-half years later.
He later left his father’s firm in 2007 to become a partner and then general partner at venture capital firm New Markets Venture Partners, where he sourced a large number of his employer’s education deals in a tenure which ended in 2015.
Bonsal said: “[Bonsal Capital] have made over 15 investments in education since 2001 and realised two-thirds of them.
“For the time being, Bonsal Capital will be sorting out reserves needed for prospective follow-on investing in existing holdings and be thoughtfully exclusive to investing in regional edtech, with an open-minded eye beyond. This is a family office vehicle whose returns and impact are exemplary.”
– Image courtesy of LinkedIn
