Private Equity
Keytone Ventures has closed its debut fund with $200 million in capital commitments. The China-focused firm's principals are: Joe Zhou, formerly with KPCB China;Stella Jin, formerly with IDG-Accel China Growth Fund; and Peng Jin, also formerly with IDG-Accel China Growth Fund.
2 min read · 12 July 2009
PROfounders Capital has held a first close on its inaugural VC fund. No financial information was disclosed. The London-based firm also announced that it has added Sean Seton-Rogers, formerly an associate with Balderton Capital, as a general partner. Other existing team members include Bebo founder Michael Birch, Lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman, LongAcre Partners founder Jonathan Goodwin and Oakley Capital founder Peter Dubens.
2 min read · 10 July 2009
Venture capital funds raised just $5.1 billion in the first half of 2009, according to data released this morning by Dow Jones. This represents a 63% drop from the same period last year, and is the slowest first half since 2003. The decrease was felt across sub-asset class. Early-stage firms raised $2.7 billion for 36 funds, compared to the $5.2 billion raised by 43 funds in the first half of 2008. Late-stage firms were off more than 53%, while multi-stage funds were down more than 68 percent. Expect these numbers to be largely mirrored in an upcoming report from the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). The overall first-half total
1 min read · 08 July 2009
Excel Venture Management has closed its debut fund with $125 million in capital commitments. The Boston-based firm focuses on early-to-late-stage life sciences platform and technology companies. It was formed following the 2007 split of CB Health Ventures, and represents most of that firm's Boston office (the New York office became Health Enterprise Partners).
3 min read · 07 July 2009
1 min read · 06 July 2009
5AM Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on life sciences, has passed $150 million fundraising target on its third fund, according to a regulatory filing. It now has $159.2 million in capital commitments from 34 accredited investors, compared to $119.25 million disclosed in an April filing. The firm's second fund closed in 2006 with $150 million. Based in Waltham, Mass., and Menlo Park, Calif., 5AM was formed in 2004, raising a $65 million fund. It’s led by managing partners Andrew Schwab, Scott Rocklage and John Diekman.
1 min read · 06 July 2009
WHEB Venture Partners, a European VC firm focused on cleantech, has raised £90 million for its second fund, and plans to close on a total of £150 million by year-end.
6 min read · 06 July 2009
Serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen and his longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz have closed on a $300 million venture fund that aims to invest in mostly seed-stage deals, mostly in Silicon valley, and that will be focused on “anything based on computers,” Andreessen told peHUB. The eponymously named Andreessen Horowitz fund, whose only GPs are Andreessen and Horowitz, will not invest in “cleantech, energy, biotech, life sciences, nanotech, rocket ships, electric cars or space elevators,” said Andreessen. Instead, he and Horowitz will be seeking out the most interesting opportunities in “consumer Internet or what we call business Internet: software as a service and related things cloud computing.” Andreessen added that the pair
3 min read · 06 July 2009
Private equity fundraising last quarter rose by 28% to $76.2 billion, according to data released this morning by industry research firm Preqin. That total comes from 82 funds from all over the world, including vehicles focused on buyouts ($33.9b), natural resources ($9.9b), real estate ($8.9b), secondaries ($8.4b), venture capital ($4.7b), fund-of-funds ($7.7b) and mezzanine ($1.2b). Sounds kind of impressive on first glance, but the topline number should not overshadow what is mostly a nnegative report. Among the downers: - The Q209 tally is off more than 60% from the $213 billion raised in Q208 (which was an all-time record). - The number of funds currently seeking capital has dropped by 10% over the past three months. This includes some of the 30 abandoned fundraising efforts so far in 2009, which matches the entire 2008 total.
2 min read · 01 July 2009
1 min read · 01 July 2009
