Kash and thread:
I am not sure if this has been posted already but A. Raza has become a venture capitalist. Its sounds like he has some good deals cooking up.
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Atiq Raza Starts Firm, Fund to Nurture Networking Companies
San Jose, Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Atiq Raza, former president of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., started a venture capital firm to incubate new communications and computer-networking companies, joining the ranks of executives turned private investors.
The firm, Raza Foundries, has investments in three start-ups, which Raza declined to name. A separate entity, called the Raza Venture Fund, has investments in 18 companies, he said. The fund has about $90 million, including $20 million of Raza's own money. The rest came from other entrepreneurs and executives.
Raza, 50, left AMD in July, surprising investors who expected him to succeed Chief Executive Jerry Sanders. He joins a growing group of industry executives who are trying their hands at venture investing, including former Netscape Communications Corp. CEO Jim Barksdale and ousted Seagate Technology Inc. Chairman Al Shugart. Raza is focusing on the fast-growing communications-chip industry.
``This is the hottest part of the market,' Raza said.
Raza Foundries takes equity stakes of 20 percent to 50 percent in fledgling companies, making a bigger commitment than most venture funds do with their start-ups, Raza said.
He is modelling Raza Foundries on CMGI Inc., the high-flying firm that invests in promising Internet companies. CMGI shares have soared fourfold in the last 12 months.
Communications Chips
Advanced Micro is Intel Corp.'s biggest rival in the market for microprocessors, the chips that control personal computers.
Though AMD focuses mostly on PCs, Raza said he has plenty of experience with communications chips. Before becoming chief operating officer and then president at AMD, Raza ran the company's communications group. His first job out of college in his native Pakistan was working on telephone equipment at Siemens AG, the German electronics and engineering firm.
Shares of communications-chip companies and networking firms have soared this year, dwarfing gains by AMD and Intel. Shares of networking-chip maker PMC-Sierra Inc., for example, have risen fivefold in 12 months, compared with a 48 percent gain for Intel and a 77 percent gain for AMD in the same period.
Initial public offerings of networking companies are making venture capitalists rich as well. Shares of Redback Networks Inc. have risen 18-fold since the firm's IPO in May. Venture capital firm Accel Partners invested $5.2 million in Redback in January 1997. Today, Accel's stake is worth about $1.36 billion.
Raza's Path
Raza came to AMD in 1996 when the company bought his semiconductor firm, NexGen Inc. NexGen gave AMD much of the technology it needed to compete more effectively with Intel.
At AMD, Raza was the soft-spoken engineer who handled technology, while Sanders, whose tastes run to tailored suits and Rolls-Royces, pressed computer makers to use AMD chips and bashed rival Intel for trying to put him out of business.
Raza oversaw development of the K6 family of chips, which are among AMD's most successful. He was seen as a likely successor to Sanders, whose contract calls for him to step down as CEO at the end of 2001 and relinquish the chairman title at the end of 2002.
Raza, who came to the U.S. in 1979 with just $3,000, lives in Morgan Hill, in California's Silicon Valley.
AMD this week named Hector Ruiz, former head of Motorola Inc.'s semiconductor business, to fill Raza's old positions.
Jan/27/2000 14:00
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