In business about a year-and-a-half and just 28 years old, nevertheless Lorne Goldberg has raised $18.5 million for local companies needing growth capital. He likes to specialize in smaller situations, where $1 million to $5 million is needed to fuel growth.

“This is a real niche market, but there is a real need for financing at this level,” said Goldberg, who founded West Coast Capital LLC in West Los Angeles in 1995. “And there are willing investors. In fact, there are not enough deals for the money out there.”

But very few people specialize in raising such relatively paltry sums of money – indeed, with the pension funds now allocating billions to venture capital managers, many venture financiers will not consider deals under $20 million.

But Goldberg is active: he has raised money for Pink Dot Inc., a delivery service; Color Me Mine, Inc., a do-it-yourself pottery shop acquired by Koo Koo Roo, Inc.; Jakks Pacific, Inc., a toy importer that went public; Rosti Inc., the eight-unit restaurant chain; and P.S. I Love You, Inc., a company that produces personalized musical cassettes for birthdays, Mother’s Days and other events.

Goldberg comes out of real estate investor Heitman Financial, Inc.’s Beverly Hills office, and holds a business degree from Temple University in Philadelphia. He built up contacts there he thought could be redeployed into the venture capital world.

But a warning to those who are seeking venture capital growth: Goldberg’s investors want equity (an ownership stake), and they want to have their investment increase by 250 percent in a three-to five-year horizon.