Spinoff Doctors VC firm frees and rehabilitates small tech firms languishing inside large companies.

One of the great dramas of the 1990s was watching largecompanies race to get larger through mergers and acquisitions. Thelure of hot new technologies and plentiful cash from the publicmarkets combined to create a tidal wave of M&A activity,especially among the new-technology giants like Cisco Systems,Intel, Microsoft and Network Associates Technology.

Many of those acquisitions, of course, did not work out asplanned. And now those acquisitive parent companies are findingthemselves burdened with underperforming divisions or productlines.

Fortunately, both the unhappy parent company and the languishingtechnology business inside it have a new champion. Garnett &Helfrich Capital, a new private equity firm, is activelyseeking out such companies. Unlike traditional VCs that preferfreshly minted companies and eager young entrepreneurs, TerryGarnett and David Helfrich, both 47, are looking for companies thatmay be "broken and orphaned" within a largerorganization.