Mr. Boettcher has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA (as an Arjay Miller Scholar) and MA degrees from Stanford University. In addition to his investing activities, Mr. Boettcher leads Focus Ventures¡¯ business development efforts for its U.S. portfolio companies in Asia. Value-added activities include recruiting, finding manufacturing and sales & marketing partners and establishing new or joint-venture Asian entities. Working closely with Dr. CC Han, he helped to establish Focus Ventures Shanghai Representative Office in 2001. Jim led the Focus Ventures investment in and is on the Advisory committee for Golden Sands River Ventures in Beijing. As a long-time senior advisor to the Cha Group in Hong Kong, he helped organize and is on the Investment Committee for the Beijing-based Mingly China Growth Fund, which manages both a U.S. dollar offshore fund as well as a domestic RMB fund.
Mr. Boettcher is frequently tapped to speak about his experiences at events around the globe, hosted by organizations such as Asian Venture Capital Journal and International Business Forum.
His recent keynote presentation at the 5th Annual Asian Private Equity and Venture Forum was subsequently published as a white paper entitled The China Paradigm Factor and featured in The Top Capital business magazine in Beijing.
Mr. Boettcher was one of the cofounders in 1986 and a Managing Director of a successful investment banking boutique, Amsterdam Pacific Corporation, which was purchased by a large European bank in 1994. Mr. Boettcher has many years of experience and a successful track record in expansion stage investing and was a General Partner of BBU Mezzanine Funds I and II. Successful investments include Alteon WebSystems, CoSine Communications, Telera, ONI, NetScaler, Starent Networks, Prism Radio Partners, Deeptech, Hello Direct, US Filter and USA Waste. Prior to forming Amsterdam Pacific Corporation, he worked at Ford Aerospace and was Vice President in the Telecommunications Section of the Bank of America¡¯s Investment Banking Group where he had investment banking assignments in the telecom, media, and high technology fields. He has concluded numerous complex financings in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East while based in London and Hong Kong with Bank of America and Crocker National Bank. Mr. Boettcher has lectured in corporate and project financing at Stanford and has written numerous finance related articles including one published in the May-June 1982 issue of the Harvard Business Review, which was subsequently selected as one of the year¡¯s best and published in a hardcover collection. Prior to attending business school, he worked for four years as a telecommunications engineer in the U.S. Air Force, specializing in analog/digital voice systems and digital networking.