US early-stage venture capital firm Charles River Ventures has announced that it has closed its 14th fund, CRP XIV, at USD320m.
US early-stage venture capital firm Charles River Ventures has announced that it has closed its 14th fund, CRP XIV, at USD320m.
The closing of CRP XIV brings the firm’s total capital under management to approximately USD2.1bn.
‘Over the last two years, we’ve worked with talented entrepreneurs to achieve more than a dozen positive exits across our portfolio, including three initial public offerings as well as the largest venture-backed M&A transaction of 2008,’ says Bruce Sachs, partner, Charles River Ventures (pictured).
‘Clearly our investing strategy is working. With our new fund, we will continue to invest in high-potential entrepreneurs and we will work hard with them to help them create hugely impactful companies. We believe that this strategy will continue to deliver top results for the entrepreneurs we back as well as our limited partners.’
CRV’s liquidity events over the past 24 months have yielded approximately USD600m in returns for the firm’s limited partners.
These events include three IPOs – BigBand Networks, Netezza and Virtusa – and numerous mergers and acquisitions including EqualLogic to Dell; Acopia Networks to F5 Networks; Compete to TNS; and the Celunol merger with Diversa to form Verenium.
With CRP XIV, the firm will continue to invest in early-stage information technology companies within the communications, internet and software segments as well as emerging companies focused on energy and intellectual property. Its current portfolio includes young companies in these sectors such as Geni, Great Call, Nantero, RPX, Scribd, SMS Gupshup, Social Media, Twitter, Vlingo and Yammer.
The investing partners of CRV XIV include Izhar Armony, Jon Auerbach, Saar Gur, Bruce Sachs, Bill Tai, Austin Westerling, Devdutt Yellurkar and George Zachary.
Mike Zak will also continue as a partner of the firm, serving in advisory capacity on new investments.
CRV’s limited partners include long-standing investors with the firm, including major universities, pension funds and non-profit institutions.
‘In the current economic climate, we are especially grateful to our limited partners who have the long-term vision to invest in early-stage ventures and trust us with their valuable capital. We are committed to delivering the top results that they have come to expect from CRV,’ says Sachs.
