Greylock Partners, one of the oldest venture capital firms in the US, will be eyeing up marketplaces and the enterprise cloud with its new $1bn fund. It’s the firm’s 14th fund since 1965 and first since moving from Boston to Silicon Valley.
The firm has managed several big internet hits over the last decade: including relatively early investments in LinkedIn and Facebook. Among its mistakes, at least according to Bloomberg Businessweek, are deals with Groupon and Digg and a “pass” on Twitter.
Still, it’s a good track record – and the firm apparently raised its latest fund in a matter of weeks, with oversubscription and no new limited partners. Top priorities for the new fund are marketplaces – which alone deserve a $100m focus, Greylock partners David Sze and Reid Hoffmann wrote – and cloud-based enterprise products and services.
From its 13th fund, also worth $1bn after a top-up in 2011, Greylock has made over 140 investments – 120 of them at seed or Series A stage. Raising such large sums doesn’t mean all of it will actually be used, with only about half of the 13th fund actually invested.
As well as its Silicon Valley headquarters, Greylock Partners has offices in Cambridge (US), Beijing and Bangalore. Sister firm Greylock Israel takes care of Europe, with offices in Tel Aviv and London.
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