By Sean Wolfe
There’s always room for a few more limited partners. Early-stage venture firm OVP Venture Partners announced over the weekend it had enlarged its latest fund, OVP VII, to $250 million, bringing in an additional $43 million since its first close last May.
While OVP is primarily West Coast focused, the new money is all East Coast. Meketa Investment Group, of Westwood, Massachusetts, and the endowment of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester both participated, as did GKM Generation Funds (for the New
York State Common Fund,Olin College of Engineering, andthe Alfred I. DuPont Testamentary Trust in Jacksonville, Florida).
The new LPs join returning investors and long-time OVP backers Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, the Washington State Investment Board and the endowments of IndianaUniversity and KenyonCollege.
“We are always looking for top-tier groups with differential advantage,” College of the Holy Cross’ treasurer William Durgin said in a statement. “OVP’s leadership in the Northwest and its track record of proven performance meant they were the right choice for us as we expand our private equity program.”
OVP General Partner Chad Waite said he took the new investors and increased fund size as a vote of confidence that “speaks to the strength others see in the technological advances coming out of our region.”
The new fund tops its prior fund, OVP VI, which raised north of $190 million in 2002. OVP now boasts in the neighborhood of $750 million in capital under management.
The company has already put some of its 2006 close to work, leading a syndicate of investors to tuck a $10.5 million first round into GainSpan, a still-largely stealth spinout of Intel Corp. that develops low-power wireless applications.It also participated in a $20 million funding for Talyst, of Bellevue, Washington, which makes a number of medical technology products, mostly oriented around tracking drug inventories within a hospital setting. Finally, it has also backed fabless semiconductor shop Tzero, whose silicon and software products are used in products that deliver high-definition video for consumers.
The strategy for this latest fund remains consistent with OVP’s past practice, namely: pick 20-25 pre-revenue companies, back them with $1-5 million each, and look to invest between $8-$15 million in total over the life of each deal.From a sector perspective, OVP said it will continue to go after opportunities in communications, software, security, semiconductors, digital biology, and
nanotechnology. Geographically, it has a Pacific Northwest preference, but dabbles in the California market — GainSpan, for example is Silicon Valley-based, but is sufficiently under wraps the company has yet to say what city they hang their hats in.