Secondary market investor Industry Ventures has raised a $425 million fund. Founded in 2000, the firm manages more than $1.7 billion of institutional capital and is headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Washington, D.C.
The new fund, Secondary VII, is the firm’s largest to date. LPs in the fund include 30 institutions representing government and corporate pension funds, insurance companies, endowments and foundations.
Industry Ventures plans to invest the money in a mix of cleantech, Internet, software, and healthcare companies over the next two to three years. Prior secondary market cleantech investments include Comverge (COMV) – demand response, Harvest Power – biofuels, and Innergy Power – batteries and PV solar modules.
Secondary market funds provide liquidity alternatives for venture capital investments by acquiring shares directly from employees and early investors. Founder Hans Swildens says his firm has benefited from a growing trend in secondary market funds, as private companies want to control stock transactions and seek out established buyers on the secondary markets.
Industry Ventures has led secondary investments in several notable companies that realized exits, including Alibaba Group, Twitter (TWTR), Ancestry.com (ACOM), Broadsoft (BSFT), Facebook (FB), and Splunk (SPLK).
To read the Industry Ventures press release, click here