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The collapse of the telecommunications sector has forced Seattle-based Incepta Ventures LLC, one of the region's largest venture capital firms, to shutter its doors.
Incepta will lay off all 19 of its employees here and at its London office, leaving a bare-bones staff of independent consultants to manage the 3-year-old firm's portfolio, said Jeff Leichtman, a spokesman for Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc. of San Francisco, Incepta's financial backer.
"It's an unsettling time in the telecom industry," Leichtman said. "The entire industry is undergoing a broad-based re-evaluation and we're just seeing a lot less investment activity and opportunity."
Bechtel Enterprises is a subsidiary of privately owned engineering and construction giant Bechtel Group Inc., which generated $13.4 billion in revenues in 2001.
John DeFeo, Incepta's senior managing director and former chief executive of US West Cellular is one of the few Incepta staffers who will stay on to manage its portfolio, Leichtman said. DeFeo declined to comment.
Leichtman said Bechtel will consider increasing its investment in telecom if a recovery occurs.
DeFeo told the Puget Sound Business journal in July 1999 that Bechtel Enterprises committed more than $500 million to the venture...