At a time when limited partners are being stingy with their venture dollars, Charles River Ventures just announced it raised $320 million for its fourteenth fund, Charles River Partnership XIV. (The last fund it raised was $285 million in April, 2007). With the new fund, the firm now manages $2.1 billion.
Raising any capital in this environment is an achievement in itself. But CRV has been able to return $600 million to its limited partners over the past two years. Some of the bigger liquidity events during that time included the IPOs of BigBand Networks, Netezza, and Virtusa, as well as the acquisitions of EqualLogic to Dell (for $1.4 billion), Acopia Networks to F5 Networks (for $210 million), and Compete to TNS (for $75 million).
Current investments include Geni, Nantero, Scribd, Social Media, Twitter, Vlingo and Yammer,
Earlier this month August Capital was also able to raise a new fund. Keep an eye on the VCs who are able to raise money post-financial collapse. They are the ones with recent positive returns.
Seems like if we’re not turning the corner, we’re getting close to that point or at least finding a floor. With Charles River’s track record, it seems like great timing to raise funds to make investments at the start of any turnaround. The IPO and M&A markets won’t open next month, but likely in a couple of years.
Congratulations George and team!
Their portfolio actually seems quite healthy given the current economic climate, that is, there are still quite a lot of trade sale liquidity possibilities in there, at least, compared to many other VC portfolios.
Since the IPO window seems shut for the forseeable future, trade saleability is probably the best metric for portfolio health … and CRV actually seems okay on that front.
I disagree 100%. The traditional metrics are still the best measures of portfolio health: sales, profits, user base and cash/burn.
Very good, congrats fellas
Whoa! $320 Million is such a very big amount. Hope that this project becomes very successful.
more money sweet!
Great, $320 million more for Twitter.
CRiver is one of the VC firms that isn’t afraid to look long term and actually seems to care. Like those guys…..
Congrats to CRV. Impressive accomplishment in this environment. Nice looking list of investments there.
Congratulations to CRV on the new fund. Very difficult in this environment. The liquidity events certainly helped.
Congratulations to the CRV team!
Congrats to the gang at CRV in Ma and Ca!
Kudos to CRV guys.. Sure do know what they are doing!
Cheers,
Mike
Wow – returning more than $600 million in liquidity to LPs in the last two years (2007-2008) when financial markets were down is a top-notch performance. Albeit, raising $320 million in today´s environment is not an easy task. CRV is a master of the VC trade.
Carry on with the good you´re doing!