---
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
  - Person
  - VentureCapital
  - PROMIS
  - INSLAW
  - CouncilOnForeignRelations
summary: "New York venture capitalist who founded Patricof & Co. Ventures, later Apax Partners, the firm whose 53rd Street Ventures fund invested in INSLAW about 1982."
location: "New York City"
relations:
  - type: founded
    with: "[[Patricof and Company]]"
    start: 1969
    fn: 1
  - type: director_of
    with: "[[Boston Properties]]"
    start: 1997-06-23
    fn: 1
  - type: director_of
    with: "[[NTL]]"
    fn: 1
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[Council on Foreign Relations]]"
    fn: 1
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
---

Alan J. Patricof founded Patricof & Co. Ventures in [[New York City]] in 1969 and was later chairman of its successor, Apax Partners, Inc. He received a bachelor's degree in finance from [[Ohio State University]] and an MBA from the [[Columbia University]] Graduate School of Business. By early 2002 he was a director of [[Boston Properties]] (from June 23, 1997), CoreComm Limited, Johnny Rockets Group and [[NTL]], a trustee of the Columbia business school and of Continuum Health Partners, a member of the New York administrative committee of [[Fleet National Bank]], and a member of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].[^1]

### INSLAW

The firm, named Allen Patricof and Associates in the report of special counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]], managed [[53rd Street Ventures]], which about 1982 made a 100,000-dollar investment in [[INSLAW]] through [[Jonathan Ben Cnaan]], an Israeli-born employee who ran the funds from 1981 to 1987. [[Patricia Cloherty]] worked at the firm from about 1970 to 1977 and again from February 1988; in between, her firm with [[Daniel Tessler]] took over the 53rd Street fund in 1984, and the Tesslers' dealings with [[Bill Hamilton]] that December became the subject of his affidavit. Bua found no wrongdoing by the Patricof firm.[^2] See [[Patricof and Company]].

### Footnotes

[^1]: Boston Properties, Inc. Definitive proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed March 29, 2002, director biography of Alan J. Patricof. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1037540/000092701602001770/ddef14a.txt
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.,* March 1993, interviews of Jonathan Ben Cnaan, Daniel Tessler and Patricia Cloherty. https://archive.org/details/InslawPROMISBuaReport