The Salvage Crew

Paul Heise knows a thing or two about companies. After one of his employers — a text-retrieval Internet firm called Verity — went public, the Dutchman successfully invested his windfall in creating two new firms, and in all he has worked for seven others.

Make that eight. Heise and two partners, all veterans of the tech industry, see a new opportunity in bailing out the European venture capital firms that found their investment portfolios floundering when the Internet bubble burst. Venture capitalism needs their help. As dotcom companies wrote down their assets, went bankrupt or held fire sales, their VC...