Crosslink Capital on Wednesday
announced its new $400 million Crossover Fund V LP to capitalize on the 13-year-old firm's history of multistage venture investing combined with public equity holdings post IPO, and PIPE investment.
"We believe that this fund is the largest crossover fund ever raised," said Crosslink co-founder Michael Stark, who described it as "a true hybrid of public and private securities."
That may well be a very good place to be, as liquidity becomes more difficult to attain in a falling economy, but the firm's claim of exclusive territory is going to be more difficult to make. In the downturn early in the decade, an increasing number of traditional venture firms began sniffing around at PIPEs, particularly in portfolio companies that had faltered in the public markets.
One of the biggest venture funds to close last year, Institutional Venture Partners Fund XII, dedicated about 10% of its new $600 million fund to PIPE investment, and firms such as Mayfield Fund, New Enterprise Associates, Venrock and others that have made late-stage investing a larger focus in recent years will surely compete for PIPE deals.
Crosslink's new fund brings total capital under management to more than $1.4 billion and includes a handful of new investors as well as most of the LPs from its Crossover IV Fund, closed in the third quarter of 2003. The fund will continue the firm's sector focus in alternative energy, core technology, communication services and Internet services.
Go to Tech Confidential Wednesday afternoon for the full story. - Clifford Carlsen
See Jan. 30 press release from Crosslink Capital
Continue reading below
