My natural inclination to introduce any discussion about venture capitalists with some mordant joke about them having no hearts or their general incapacity for wise decision-making, has to be tempered in this case because of the individual involved.

Glenn Rieger is an unusually visionary character, and today I received word from him that he was leaving Cross Atlantic where he has served as a managing partner for five+ years. Glenn was one of the investors in the ill-fated Ikimbo, which now serves only as a memory of some innovative product ideas unrealized. However, Glenn really got it: the future impacts of real-time and presence-enabled technologies that will rework the way that we work. I am only sorry that, honestly, we were way too early with the vision that we had.

So it is a real loss for Cross Atlantic, and a big win for NewSpring. Among aother accolades and acheivements, Glen recently served as Chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group, the region’s leading venture capital association, and has been involved in over 75 investments.

[via email]

King of Prussia, Pa., October 8, 2004—NewSpring Capital, a $200 million family of venture capital funds focused on investments in the Mid-Atlantic region, today announced that Glenn T. Rieger will be joining the firm as a General Partner of NewSpring Capital, and a Managing Partner of NewSpring Ventures II. Rieger will join an experienced management team that has successfully built NewSpring Capital, a family of three private equity funds—NewSpring Ventures I, NewSpring Mezzanine Capital, and Commerce Health Ventures. Rieger comes to NewSpring Capital from Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, a venture capital firm with over $400 million under management, where he was a Managing Partner.
Rieger will join industry veterans Michael A. DiPiano, Marc R. Lederman, and Brian G. Murphy as a General Partner of NewSpring Capital. Rieger will also serve as a Managing Partner of NewSpring Ventures II, a new venture capital fund providing equity capital for growth and expansion stage companies throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, to be launched in early 2005.