Vincent Smith

Vincent Coburn Smith Jr. was born in 1964 in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Mount Saint Joseph High School and earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Delaware in 1986. He began his career at Oracle Corporation as a software developer and sales leader, and in 1992 co-founded Patrol Software with an Oracle colleague — a company acquired two years later by BMC Software for roughly $34 million.

Smith is best known for building Quest Software. He joined Quest as CEO in 1998 and took the company public in 1999. Under his leadership the company grew to over 4,000 employees and approximately $1 billion in annual revenue, culminating in its acquisition by Dell in 2012 in a deal valued at roughly $2.4 billion. That same year Smith ranked ninth on Fortune's "40 Under 40" (1999) earlier in his career and has since appeared on Forbes's rankings of the wealthiest Americans as a self-made technology billionaire.

In 2012–2013 Smith founded Toba Capital, a private investment firm principally funded by his family office, where he serves as founder and sole limited partner. Toba manages a large asset base (reported figures range from ~$1.3 billion to over $3.5 billion across strategies) and has made more than 200 investments across venture, growth equity, public equities, and real estate, producing multiple unicorns and IPOs. Smith has pledged that a significant share of Toba's returns — reported at 50% — flows to foundations focused on sustainability and charitable giving.

Beyond investing, Smith launched a venture developing artificial wave-pool technology in 2021, opening the Palm Springs Surf Club in 2024 (a Toba portfolio company). He is married to Tori Smith, has five children, and is an avid skier, surfer, and outdoorsman.

• Invests primarily at seed and Series A, then uses a "two bites of the apple" approach — leading an initial round and increasing the position in later rounds.
• Core themes: B2B SaaS, IT infrastructure, and climate & energy technology.
• Backs "teams that have the potential to create significant market impact for the common good" — a mission-oriented, sustainability-linked filter reflected in Smith's pledge to direct a large portion of returns to sustainability-focused foundations.
• Looks for founders with "a clear vision and the ability to execute on their ideas," aligned with building durable, long-term technology businesses.
• Deploys patient, family-office capital (Smith as sole LP), which allows longer holding periods and flexibility across venture, growth, and public equities.