AVCJ Awards 2018: AVCJ Special Achievement: Daniel Carroll

Dan Carroll left Stanford Business School in the late 1980s with ambitions to forge a career as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Bill Hambrecht and Ta-Lin Hsu, who were in the process of establishing H&Q, Hambrecht & Quist’s Asian joint venture, persuaded him to relocate to Taiwan instead.

“I really wanted to work in Silicon Valley, but they convinced me otherwise and everything that happened afterwards was a result of this change,” Carroll said on accepting the AVCJ Special Achievement Award. “I often tell my kids don’t plan too much because great opportunities will happen in your life that you don’t anticipate.” 

He participated in what could be described as the first iteration of private equity in Asia, typically backing entrepreneur-owned businesses in Taiwan or Singapore that needed a credible outside investor ahead of an IPO. After seven years, Carroll moved back to San Francisco but then almost immediately joined TPG Capital’s newly launched venture in Asia with Blum Capital. “I had breakfast with David Bonderman around 1994 and I thought he was crazy for wanting to come to Asia. They had this great business in North America. But he had the vision to see it all and convince me,” Carroll recalled.

At the time, Newbridge Capital’s headcount was four and it had nearly finished raising a $100 million fund. A turning point came with the Asian financial crisis as, for the first time, private equity investors found they could gain control of large businesses. Newbridge led the way with Korea First Bank – a deal that took several years to close but ultimately became a template for other turnarounds and helped private equity take off in Asia.

Over 15 years, Carroll grew the business – which was eventually fully absorbed by TPG – to 40 professionals in seven offices and was responsible for raising five funds with $7 billion in committed capital. “It has been an amazing journey for the industry,” Carroll added. “I have a pitch book going back to the early 1990s that is all about China and the future of Asia and I think that has turned out to be largely true - half of the deals done in Asia are in China. But it is extraordinary to see the scale the industry has taken on.”   

Pictured: Dan Carroll (right) with AVCJ's Allen Lee

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• Topics
• GPs
• TPG Capital
• H&Q Asia Pacific
• AVCJ Awards