American Research and Development, the grand-daddy of Venture Capital in the United States, invested $77,000 for 77% of DEC in 1957 (that's roughly $598K in 201

American Research and Development, the grand-daddy of Venture Capital in the United States, invested $77,000 for 77% of DEC in 1957 (that's roughly $598K in 2010 dollars). When it went public in 1971, ARD's shares were valued at $355 million (about $1.9 billion in 2010 dollars). This one investment was responsible for over half the lifetime performance of ARD's portfolio over the decades before it was sold to Textron. See: http://books.google.com/books?id=tDOVY3ek-UEC&lpg=PA20&ots=SMPZ10_iXj&pg=PA20#v=onepage&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=tDOVY3ek-UEC&lpg=PA20&#...