Venture Capital Exec Appointed to Trammell Crow Board

PALO ALTO, CA-Locally based Trammell Crow now has a venture capitalist on its board of directors. Curtis Feeny, managing director and head of the Seattle, WA-based Voyage Capital’s Palo Alto office, will provide the board with input on market and investment trends in the industry. Feeny, who ran TCC’s Northwest region for five years a couple of jobs ago, also will serve on the board’s audit and compensation committees.

Voyager, a venture firm with $265 million under management, invests in early stage e-business software and services, Internet infrastructure, and wireless companies. Itsnvestments include Avenue A, Captura Software, ClearCommerce, Q-Sent, and SeeCommerce.P> Existing TCC board members include: Rowland Moriarty, chairman and CEO at Cubex Corp. and former Harvard Business School professor, James Erwin, past vice chairman of Bank of America, Jeffrey Heller, vice chairman of EDS and Don Williams, chairman of the board and former CEO of Trammell Crow.

Prior to Voyager, Feeny was executive vice president of Stanford Management Co. where he spent eight years as the No. 2 executive of Stanford University’s $9 billion endowment. His responsibilities included oversight of the renowned Stanford Research Park.

Before his stint at Stanford, Feeny spent five years in Seattle running the Northwest region for Trammell Crow. There he was responsible for $700 million in assets and a full-scale development operation covering Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, BC.

But it’s Feeny’s investment expertise TCC really wants, as it decides how it should invest its money. Earlier this month, TCC, CB Richard Ellis Services Inc., Insignia Financial Group Inc. and Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. announced they have split a $10 million invetment in software provider workplaceIQ Ltd. and licensed the Waltham, MA-based company to build an online marketplace for commercial real estate.

Octane Ventures, as the brokers’ group calls itself, plans to develop an online exchange and transaction-management system for property owners, tenants and commercial real-estate brokers. The system rolls out for beta testing in the fourth quarter.