David T Morgenthaler

David T. Morgenthaler, a mechanical engineer who became an early figure in the modern venture capital industry, died Friday, June 17 2016 in Cleveland. He was 96. David Turner Morgenthaler was born on Aug. 5, 1919, in Chester, S.C., into a family of farmers. After his parents were divorced he lived in several places in the South, including in South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, and served with the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. After the war, Mr. Morgenthaler worked at several start-ups before becoming an investor in new businesses. He founded his firm, Morgenthaler Ventures, in 1968, making early investments in several companies, including Apple Computer. But it was Mr. Morgenthaler’s investment in Manufacturing Data Systems, which provided programs to run machine tools, that netted him his fortune. He invested $200,000 into the newly formed business in 1969, a stake that became worth $20 million after the company went public in 1976. He helped orchestrate the company’s sale to the oil-field services giant Schlumberger for just shy of $200 million in 1981. Over the years, his firm has broken into four separate investment groups. Morgenthaler Ventures is on its ninth venture fund and still makes investments in information technology. Canvas Ventures, another information-technology investment group, was spun out of Morgenthaler in 2013. The life sciences investment arm merged with Advanced Technology Ventures and is now Lightstone Capital Partners. MPE Partners makes private equity investments. For many years, Mr. Morgenthaler served on the board of the Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit teaching hospital. He financed a professorship at Carnegie Mellon University, and a Stanford entrepreneurship prize, the David T. Morgenthaler Grand Prize, was established in his name. He also served on the Hoover Institution’s board of overseers and on the Science, Technology and Economic Policy Board of the National Academies. In addition to his son Gary, Mr. Morgenthaler is survived by his wife, Lindsay Jordan, whom he married in 1945; another son, Todd; a daughter, Lissa; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.