VINNY SMITH
FOUNDER
TOBA CAPITAL
THE MONEY: Founded in 2012, Newport Beach-based Toba Capital, now Orange County’s largest venture capital firm. Billionaire was part of a 10-acre land purchase for $54M in the Los Angeles County city of El Segundo last fall. The property is part of a larger, 30-acre development alongside El Segundo Boulevard, previously used by defense contractor Raytheon (RTX), which now holds the new base of the LA Chargers. Developers are planning a pool that will generate waves lasting up to 20 seconds for surfers. Nearly $175M earmarked for the El Segundo facility. Smith is part of an investment group that has spent $100M to develop the Palm Springs Surf Club, which originally was a water park and nowadays attracts 150,000 annual visitors.
QUEST SOFTWARE: Previously: chairman/CEO of Quest Capital. Joined Quest in 1995, when it had 35 employees and $9.5M in annual sales; became CEO in 1997. Gained about $800M in 2012 from the $2.4B sale of Quest to Dell. Used proceeds, roughly $250M, to start Toba.
TOBA: Toba is an early-stage investment firm “committed to helping create incredible technology companies.” It reports having $2B of assets under management, with typical investments said to range from $10M to $50M as of last fall.
OC INVESTMENTS: Toba’s notable local investments include Alteryx, Tebra, Mavenlink, SecureAuth, Anduril and Synoptek, along with several other investments that include Wallarm, Trace, Wiz, Coupang and many others. The remaining investments are comprised mainly of real estate focused on residential, multi-family and surf amenity development projects.
PHILANTHROPY: Smith has also been active in philanthropic circles, heading up several nonprofits that focus on different causes, including his own Teach a Man to Fish Foundation.
NOTABLE: Smith is Toba Capital’s sole limited partner.
QUOTABLE: “Toba Capital was founded by Vinny Smith with the observation that a VC firm comprised solely of senior software executives would be uniquely positioned to identify promising companies and enable their success.” —Toba on LinkedIn