IVP closes 12th fund on $600m

Institutional Venture Partners has closed its 12th and largest-ever fund on $600 million (€442 million).

The 26-year old Silicon Valley venture firm will use the fund to invest in later-stage US technology companies. It is the strategy it employed in its previous fund, which closed in 2004 on $300 million.

IVP XII will target companies in the communications and wireless, internet and digital media and IT sectors, making investments ranging from $10 million to $30 million. The firm’s strategy is to be the lead investor in venture capital financings larger than $100 million, it said.

That strategy “is one of the variables that drove the larger fund size for IVP XII”, said Norm Fogelsong, IVP general partner, in a statement.

Demand for the fund was “exceptionally strong” and “quickly oversubscribed”, predominantly by existing limited partners, IVP said. The fund’s limited partners include foundations, university endowments, financial institutions, public pension funds, private equity fund-of-funds and high net worth individuals.

IVP manages more than $2.2 billion in capital and has offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco. Since its 1980 founding, the firm says it has consistently delivered a 43.2 percent internal rate of return to investors.