Most investment bankers end up based in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.

Cascadia Capital Holdings LLC co-founder Kevin Cable keeps centered in Spokane while focusing on fast-growing companies that need to negotiate acquisition deals or raise capital.

Although Cable keeps an office inside his Spokane home, he travels about twice a week to Cascadia's Seattle headquarters and other times to destinations nationally to see clients. He describes finding plenty of work, however, in North Idaho and Eastern Washington, having helped on past deals for companies such as Purcell Systems Inc. and World Wide Packets Inc.

Launched in 2000, Cascadia Capital now employs 25 people—though Cable is the only one based here—and works with clients throughout North America. Cable declines to disclose the company's revenues.

Unlike the commercial and retail banks that most consumers are familiar with, investment banks don't take deposits or make loans. Rather, they provide merger-and-acquisition transaction advice in addition to assisting companies in raising needed capital, often through private equity.

Cable describes Cascadia as a "boutique investment bank," based on its comparatively small size and the specialized services it offers. It mostly assists with mergers and acquisitions and also matches up emerging growth companies with investors to raise capital in deals that don't involve initial public offerings, instead bringing in backers such as private equity firms or venture capital companies.

The difference between investment banks and venture capital groups, Cable explains, is that venture capital groups provide the capital and become principal investors, while investment banks help companies work with investors and buyers.

"Companies typically call us when they get a buyer," Cable adds. "They need assistance, and they need advice, to find the right exit partner at the right price and terms."

He says about 40 percent of Cascadia's business is based in the Pacific Northwest; the other 60 percent is with clients elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada. Of the 40 percent in the Pacific Northwest, 10 percent to 15 percent is in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

The company currently has about 30 active clients. Some of its larger recent deals include the March arrangement of $143 million in financing for Plasco Energy Group, an Ottawa, Canada, company that turns household garbage into electricity, and negotiating a 2010 deal for Google to buy Seattle start-up Picnik, a popular photo-editing site.

However, this side of the state has held several opportunities as well, Cable says.

"We've done a bunch of deals in Spokane," says Cable, who is an executive vice president and a shareholder in the company he helped start. "In Spokane, typically, we get involved with companies that are growing really fast."

Cable remembers his first meeting with Purcell Systems Inc. co-founder Pete Chase, who Cable says "had a great idea" for a business to make outdoor cabinets and enclosures for telecommunications equipment. Cascadia Capital helped Purcell get financed through the private equity firm of Weston Presidio, which has offices in Boston and San Francisco.

"Pete didn't know where to go to get money," Cable recalls, adding that Purcell today employs about 150 people in the Spokane Valley.

Cascadia Capital also negotiated an early deal to secure about $26 million in capital through Seattle's Madrona Venture Group for Spokane Valley-based World Wide Packets, a maker of high-speed networking products aimed at telecommunications companies, cable-TV concerns, and government entities. In a 2008 transaction in which Cascadia wasn't involved, Ciena Corp. bought World Wide Packets for roughly $300 million.

Currently, Cascadia Capital is working with Spokane-based Advantage IQ Inc., an Avista Corp. subsidiary that provides utility-bill management and other services typically to large companies, to find companies it wants to purchase, Cable says.

"Advantage IQ is, in my opinion, one of Spokane's up and coming companies," he adds.

Additionally, Cascadia assisted in the early raising of capital through Summit Partners, a growth equity firm, for Nighthawk Radiology Holdings Inc., a provider of physician readings of radiology studies on an around-the-clock basis that was launched in Coeur d'Alene 10 years ago. The company grew to become a publicly-traded company, eventually moving its headquarters to Scottsdale, Ariz., and in January, it was acquired by Virtual Radiologic, based in Minnesota.

Company moves such as these are good for this region, Cable says. "Not all that money stays in Spokane, but a lot of it does. You have owners that own personal stock, management teams who stay, and you have investors who are Spokane based."

Cascadia Capital derives its revenue from retainer and transaction fees it charges clients. It works for some clients on a retainer basis, for example, if they're looking for a buyer. The transaction fees it collects are a percentage of the dollar value of transactions it helps arrange. Cable declines to disclose that percentage.

Sometimes, the company will work with an emerging company before any fees are paid. "You try to provide them with lots of advice on an informal basis, so when they're ready down the line, they think of us," Cable says.

He says his main role with Cascadia is finding those fast-growing companies with an edge in three industries that the company focuses on: technology, sustainable industries, and middle market. In this context, Cascadia describes the latter category on its website as including such industries as manufacturing, transportation, retail and business services.

Cable says it's crucial to be knowledgeable about the best investors who are looking at those emerging companies. As part of negotiating deals, Cascadia will help a company create a presentation as well as necessary documents, and find the investors most interested in that market.

"I also look for companies that fit our themes," he says. Some examples include companies involved in cloud computing and health care information technology.

Cable says he and Michael Butler, Cascadia Capital's CEO, started the company after the two met through a mutual friend. Butler had moved back to Seattle after working in investment banking with Lehman Brothers and with Morgan Stanley. Cable knew about business startups and operations, and he also was familiar with investment banking.

"My whole career, I've been involved with start-up businesses," he says.

After growing up in Bellevue, he graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in cell biology and genetics.

"Normally you go to medical school after that," he says. After talking to his sister who already was in medical school about the demands of that career path, Cable says he opted to go in a different direction.

He landed in Silicon Valley in 1989, where he lived for six years to experience its high-tech environment. He started with a computer hardware manufacturer but eventually founded his own company called Molecular Simulations, which made software to help design pharmaceutical drugs and related technical materials. He later sold it to another company.

His wife, Joanna, and his father also both worked in the investment banking world during this time, so Cable also learned about that industry from them. When he and Joanna decided to move back to Seattle in 1995, Cable started another venture, Numera Software, which he later sold to Corel Corp. and went on to start Cascadia Capital with Butler.

By 2005, Cable and his wife decided to move to Spokane with their two children. His wife's sister has lived in Spokane for many years, and prior to moving here himself, Cable had traveled often here to see his wife's family and for Cascadia business. "I kept coming out here and visiting the companies and really liking it," he says. "It's a less complicated life."

Today, Cable serves as foundation board president for Sirti, the Spokane-based state economic development agency focused on accelerating the growth of innovative technology companies.

Cable says the Spokane region is "growing into itself" regarding the number of high quality, emerging companies.

"I think we're going to churn out more and more," he adds.

He cites other promising factors here, including technology spinoffs from the area's universities, Sirti's involvement, and the "angel" investor funding environment.

"Spokane is maturing," Cable says. "There are opportunities here to build more startups, and we have more people here who know how to do startups and can get the capital."

"Most people who do investment banking live in New York or LA. or San Francisco," Cable adds. "I feel very fortunate to be able to do this work and live in Spokane."