The venture capital firms provided s5 million in start-up capital with Boeing tetaining a minority stake. Boeing recruited local man, David Weld, a former Microsoft executive with experience of previous start-ups, to lead the new vegture Given parentage, is not perhap a typical start-up as David weld acknowledged when he said "it's not five smart guys in a garage However, with 20 employees and a lot of specialised technical expertise it is a fairly typical spin-off. MessageGate is only the third spin-off from Boeing Ventures, the others being AvChem, a chemical management company in Missouri, and an underwater survey services venture in Houston, Texas Source: Jung (2003).