Private Equity
Today I received a new study on student-run VC funds at business schools (there are more than a dozen of them), produced by the University of Oxford. It finds that education is considered the primary goal of such efforts, with ROI placing second. That said, over one-third of the funds surveyed have produced a profitable exit. Download the full report here
1 min read · 29 June 2010
SV Life Sciences today announced that it has closed its fifth fund with over $523 million in capital commitments, busting through its original $400 million target. Looks like the second-largest fundraise of 2010 from a healthcare-focused VC firm (OrbiMed raised $550m), so I spent a few minutes on the phone with SV chairman and managing partner Jim Garvey: peHUB: Many VC firms are having trouble closing on even half of their fund targets, but you were well oversubscribed. Here’s the softball: Why did LPs love you so much? Garvey: One reason is that we’ve been at this for 15 years and our first three funds have demonstrable track records. And I think when times turned tough and LPs were hit with liquidity crises, many of them used performance as the deciding factor on who they were going to keep following. Our strategy is probably a good fit in difficult times, because it’s very broad across healthcare. We’re investing across two continents, early-stage to late-stage and in biotech, pharma and healthcare IT.
3 min read · 29 June 2010
1 min read · 28 June 2010
DFJ Mercury has closed its second fund with $70 million in capital commitments. The Houston, Texas-based firm makes seed-stage and early-stage investments in IT, advanced materials and bioscience companies. It had raised $30 million for its debut fund, including an initial close and subsequent annex vehicles.
3 min read · 25 June 2010
The University of New Hampshire has partnered with a group of local entrepreneurs to launch a nonprofit business accelerator named the New Hampshire Innovation Commercialization Center.
4 min read · 24 June 2010
1 min read · 23 June 2010
IGNIA Fund, a venture capital firm focused on Mexico and the rest of Latin America, has closed its debut vehicle with $102 million in capital commitments.
2 min read · 23 June 2010
3 min read · 23 June 2010
Back in April, I wrote that Polaris Venture Partners was steaming toward a final close on $500 million for its sixth fund. It was a big cut from the $1 billion Polaris raised for its last fund, but its process seemed smoother than that of local rival Highland Capital Partners (which also halved the target of its new fund, but took quite a while to get there). Well, it seems Polaris is having troubles too (which means I was wrong). A regulatory filing indicates that the $500 million target has been cut to $400 million, and that the firm only had $233 million banked as of May 26. An LP source says that the revised timeline is to hit a final close sometime in Q3, but that Q4 remained a possibility.
1 min read · 16 June 2010
Panoramic Growth Equity, a later-stage UK venture capital firm, has held a £34 million first clos on its debut fund.
2 min read · 15 June 2010
