In the News...

Greenstone partners named to the list
Richard Osborn, 30
Partner, Greenstone Venture Partners
Birthplace: Saskatoon
Residence: Vancouver

Brent Holliday, 33
Partner, Greenstone Venture Partners
Birthplace: Edmonton
Residence: Tsawwassen

Richard Osborn?s quiet but forceful manner blends well with that of Brent Holliday, talkative cofounder with Osborn of Greenstone Venture Partners, the first technology venture capital firm established as limited partnership in Vancouver since Ventures West in 1969.

Launched last January with a $40-million pool, it has inked deals for eight companies representing investment totaling $28 million.

Osborn and Holliday followed parallel paths prior to setting up the firm. Both worked at Multiactive Software, then the Business Development Bank of Canada from 1997 to 1999. Each brought unique skills to their working relationships, which has always involved raising capital.

For his part, Osborn studied political science at the Queen?s University, graduating with his bachelor?s degree in 1993. He started studies toward an MBA in 1996, which led him westward to Vancouver.

Holliday also went through the UBC MBA program, graduating in 1994, but in his case it was the sequel to an earlier attempt to follow his father into medicine. Graduating with a bachelor of science in pharmacology from Western Ontario in 1989, he went to work as an organ donor coordinator for the Transplant Society in Toronto and, in his spare time, developed the country?s first transplant database, which helped link heart, liver and lung donors with recipients.

The chaos of coordinating transplants was ideal preparation for raising capital, something he terms ?the hardest thing you?ll ever do in your life.?

The success is something he likes sharing, however, and while Osborn structures another deal, Holliday encourages early-stage technology companies to follow their dreams.