David Lawrence Cremin is an American

venture capitalist Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

and co-founder of the early-stage venture capital firm Frontier Venture Capital.

Early career

Beginning in 1982, Cremin recorded and performed music, first as a member of

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...

(Atlantic /EastWest Records), and then as guitarist with Vincent Rocco (

Elektra Records Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the ...

). He then founded Vis-a-Vis Entertainment, Inc. representing and recording a number of artists including Michael Wolff (The Arsenio Hall Show, Sony Music), Downset (Mercury/Polygram Records) and

For Love Not Lisa For Love Not Lisa was an American hard rock band formed in the early 1990s in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They were signed to East West Records and Tooth & Nail Records. They released two albums in the 1990s before disbanding in 1996. History ...

(EastWest Records). He also produced and recorded Engines of Aggression (

Priority Records Priority Records is an American distribution company and record label known for artists including N.W.A, Ice Cube, MC Ren, Eazy-E, Master P, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Silkk the Shocker, Jay-Z, Paris, Mack 10, 504 Boyz, Brotha Lynch Hung, ...

) and

Ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group, a single oxygen atom bonded to two separate carbon atoms, each part of an organyl group (e.g., alkyl or aryl). They have the general formula , where R and R� ...

(Criminal Records). Subsequent to Vis-a-Vis Entertainment, Cremin began his venture capital career in 1998 co-founding Zone Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on media technology ventures where he was responsible for fund management, fund raising, deal sourcing and due diligence. While at Zone Ventures, he helped lead an investment in

DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a discontinued digital video format. Created in part by Circuit City, it was an unsuccessful attempt to create an alternative to video rental in the United States. The format's poor reception from consumers resu ...

, a video compression technology and distribution company, which completed a successful

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

(Nasdaq:DIVX, subsequently purchased by

Sonic Solutions Sonic Solutions was an American computer software company headquartered in Novato, California. In addition to having a number of offices in the U.S., the company also maintained offices in Europe and Asia. It was acquired by Rovi Corporation in 2 ...

asdaq: SNIC which was purchased by Rovi asdaq: ROVI. He also served as a trustee for The BizWorld Foundation in San Francisco from 1999–2010.

Frontier

In 2002, Cremin co-founded Frontier Venture Capital with Scott Lenet and Draper Fisher Jurveston. He has helped lead investments in Dailypay, Coterie Insurance, SubjectWell, Prolacta Bioscience, Big Frame (DreamWorks), AudioMicro (Zealot Networks), Clear Access (Cisco), MaxPreps (CBS), among others.

Educational roles

Cremin started teaching

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

and

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

at the

Orfalea College of Business The Orfalea College of Business is one of six colleges at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. The business school was established in 1959 and later named after Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s. The Orfalea C ...

California Polytechnic State University California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo or Cal Poly) is a public university in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States, - Cites the location of the university and shows that the university ...

San Luis Obispo ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...

in 2003; he was

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

there until 2009. He has helped form and served on the advisory board of the Entrepreneurship Center at

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...

, where he was an adjunct professor from 2003 to 2010. He has guest lectured at colleges and universities across

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Cremin holds a B.S. in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering (IE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, an ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Personal life

Cremin is the son of Lawrence A. Cremin, a professor of education at

Teachers College Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education affiliated with Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has been a part of Columbia University since ...

in New York, where he was president from 1974–1984 He was awarded a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

for history in 1981 for "American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876," the second volume of his three-volume history of U.S. schools"Lawrence A. Cremin; Pulitzer Prize Historian"
"The Los Angeles Times", September 8, 1990, accessed July 25, 2011 Cremin is the grandson of Arthur T. Cremin a

serial entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entrepreneu ...

, who among other things created a chain of music schools, providing inexpensive music lessons in neighborhoods across

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and providing frequent classical music concerts highlighting the schools’ students at various venues including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cremin, David L. Living people 1960 births American venture capitalists California Polytechnic State University faculty University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Stanford University alumni Businesspeople from New York City