AOL founder looks to invest outside Silicon Valley

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

WASHINGTON - AOL co-founder Steve Case is looking to finance entrepreneurs who are trying to build technology companies outside Silicon Valley, just like he once did.

The startups will be bankrolled by a $200 million fund that Case's Revolution Ventures announced Monday. The Revolution Ventures fund plans to make investments of up to $10 million in startups during the next three to four years.

Case expects 90 percent of the money to be funneled to entrepreneurs living outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Revolution Ventures fund is based in Washington D.C., not far from the Virginia offices where Case turned America Online into one of the Internet's first success stories.

Case stepped down as AOL's chairman a decade ago, a few years after the company bought Time Warner.