Dan Frydenlund

Dan Frydenlund, founder & GP of Stage Fund, is an accomplished early-stage financial and operating executive, venture capitalist, and private equity investor. He has extensive experience spearheading restructuring & turnaround events and has led seed-stage investing through IPO for over 25 years, having raised over $1B in debt and equity capital.

A University of Rhode Island graduate, Dan started his entrepreneurial career in 1989 with CenCall. Focusing on finance, he worked for Centennial Fund, the largest VC in the Mountain West region of Colorado. After helping CenCall go public in the 1990s and complete a $35B merger with Sprint, Dan continued his career with Centennial in both Latin America and Europe.

Having been on the operating side of ventures for 10-15 years, Dan transitioned from operator to investor when he was recruited to take on Donald Sturm’s European operations and investments. Dan eventually became Managing Director of the Sturm Group, a $500M private equity fund with 17 technology investments.

Dan specializes in restructuring events and turnarounds situations with tight liquidity. When the internet bubble burst, Dan successfully led the restructuring, mergers, and sales of all 17 Sturm portfolio companies, assuming C-level and board positions and returning capital to the fund at unprecedented levels.

Dan was then recruited by The Gores Group’s London office to manage their European investment opportunities and the financial restructuring of Real Software, a company Gores had acquired with over 2,000 employees and $175M in revenue. In 2008, Dan successfully facilitated the exit of Real Software.

Going downstream of the Gores Group model, Dan returned to Colorado and began leveraging his own capital to assume ownership and restructure companies on a one off basis. Over the next decade, Dan grew and evolved the operation into a formal private equity fund, partnering with Krista Morgan & Ingrid Alongi. Since founding Stage in 2009, Dan has acquired more than 26 companies with an 80% debt capital return rate.