Hercules Technology Growth Capital: more information

Item1A:

currently work here - AMA

Changed the name to Hercules Capital in Q1. It's a public BDC that does primarily senior secured structured debt in tech/life sci/clean tech with a "special opportunities" team (mezzanine). MD's are great, mostly from BB IBD, CEO is smart as shit and fun to work for if you're not in his crosshairs. No office in Chicago (it's 1 woman who makes sure we aren't trading public portfolio companies). Offices in Palo Alto and Boston - got 1 guy in NY, 1 in San Diego, and 1 in LA. The teams are specialized, but pretty broad in that life sci does med devices/biopharma/HCIT, and similar broad focus on the tech side too. We are publicly traded, and the only BDC that trades above book value (I think 1.7x NAV right now), and we pay a 9%+ dividend.

I love it because a lot of the companies are pre-revenue or early commercialization, so it's a bit of a different game. We structure our transactions around near term value inflection points and companies' current and future access to capital.

The younger guys have tons of visibility with mgmt, and it's the kind of place where you can reach as high as you want. What I mean by that is you can conduct an analysis and develop an investment thesis on your own, and the MDs really encourage that. We have small deal teams, so you can take a lot of responsibility if you want to.

Good visibility with mgmt teams at prospective companies, and good visibility with VCs. I've heard an MD say it's the best place to work if you're looking for a job. You get decent training in all aspects of transaction execution and working with 3rd party due diligence partners. It's good training for VC, PE, event driven HF, and operating roles, and I've seen ex-employees do all of the above.