In addition to Safeguard Scientifics, major investors included Comcast, Compaq, BancBoston Ventures, and a dozen individuals.

Under the guidance of ICG, in late 1997, Water Online hired Mark Walsh, head of AOL's B2B division, as CEO.

[3] Spurning opportunities to invest in online retailers such as CDNow and AutoWeb, ICG developed a reputation as "the VCs to see if you were an entrepreneur with a B2B idea.

Early investments began to pay off and ICG generated additional funds by selling some of its positions.

[2] However, unlike traditional venture capitalists, Buckley and Fox envisioned that ICG would hold most of its investments for ten years or longer.

After much effort, Fox persuaded Sam Jadallah, Microsoft's chief of enterprise sales and marketing, to join the company.

High-profile investors now included Amerindo Investment Advisors, the House of Saud, the Penske family, and David Bonderman.

[2] Book value of the company, including stakes in VerticalNet and U.S. Interactive which had gone public, was only about $1 billion and Wall Street was betting on future success.

[3] By February 1, 2000, the stock had declined nearly $100 per share in anticipation of insider selling at the expiration of the lock-up period.

[8] The rapid expansion was motivated by what Fox called "the biggest wealth-creation opportunity the world has ever seen" – finding the promising e-commerce B2B companies before anyone else.

[4] The NASDAQ Composite stock market index peaked in March 2000 and the company was hurt by the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

Buckley refocused the company to find strategic partnerships with traditional industry leaders such as a joint venture with DuPont called CapSpan in early 2000.

[13] In September 2014, when the company changed its name to Actua Corporation, its stock was trading around $20 per share and was worth approximately $700 million.