By Milt Capps
Published Thursday, November 5, 2009 10:30 am

Townes Duncan

Solidus-TNInvestco LLC — E. Townes Duncan is CEO of Solidus General Partner LLC and managing partner of Solidus Company LP.  The Solidus portfolio contains nearly 20 firms.  Duncan has been active with the venture capital firm and its predecessor about 13 years.  Duncan and Solidus combined own controlling interest in J. Alexander's Corporation, the West End-based restaurant company.  A decade ago, Duncan was on the board of Sirrom Capital Corporation, which made loans to companies under $50 million in revenue, and which through subsidiaries invested in public companies and provided M&A advisory services.  Sirrom was sold in 1999 to the Finova Group.  In 1993, Duncan became CEO of a company in distress, took the company through bankruptcy protection and sold it. Duncan, 55, began his career as an attorney with Bass, Berry & Sims' venture capital and private equity practice.  He earned his J.D. at Washington & Lee University in 1978 and his bachelor's in political science at Vanderbilt University, in 1975.  In addition to directorships in several Solidus portfolio companies, Duncan is a director of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Inc., a childcare services company and a former Solidus portfolio company. He was a founding member of the board of Nashville Capital Network, the angel-investors group; and, he is a former chairman and lifetime trustee of The Ensworth School.  Two years ago, Duncan was joined by Partner Vic Gatto (at right) , who shared with Duncan having previously served with Nashville's legendary Massey Burch investment companies.  Gatto, 39, earned his MBA at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management in 2002 and his bachelor's at Amherst College.  Earlier, Gatto co-founded and successfully sold an Atlanta-based software company.  Both Duncan and Gatto were very active in TNInvestco formative deliberations, mainly through the Tennessee Capital Formation Board. Gatto was instrumental in the formation of the TNInvestco Consortium, of which some TNInvestco companies are members. Contact: (615) 665-3818. ♦

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