Trinity Ventures using $325M warchest for SaaS and e-commerce startups

Trinity Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm that has been around for 25 years, is keeping its fund-size modest despite escalating interest from its limited partners. It’s a bubble, alright.

Rumors have been circulating about the eleventh fund for over a week, but the firm did not issue a confirmation until today. The new fund was highly oversubscribed but capped at $325 million to allow for a higher partner-to-fund ratio.

According to Ajay Chopra, a general partner at Trinity Ventures, the fund-size has been kept deliberately modest in previous years.

“We can manage our portfolio companies and stay deeply engaged with early-stage companies.” In an effort to connect with young founders, the firm runs Dolores Labs, a coworking space in San Francisco’s Mission District.

The firm specializes in early-stage startups in the digital media and e-commerce, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and cloud services. Chopra told me that the piping hot areas for the firm are SaaS solutions focused on the front office, startups that are tackling the online to offline trend, mobile e-commerce, and consumer-focused tablet applications.

Among their investments are Aruba Networks, Extreme Networks, Infoblox, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and Wall Data, which have all gone public.

In their more recent funds, the most promising investments include BeachMint, Care.com, Kixeye, Maxpoint, New Relic, RadiumOne, ServiceMax, and TubeMogul.