Venture capital firm Greycroft, which made early investments in The Huffington Post, paidContent, and WideOrbit, has closed on its first growth fund at $200 million, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Its new fund, Greycroft Growth LP, will continue the firm’s focus on Internet-based companies, but now that it’s investing in later stage companies, the investment sizes will be larger — between $5 and $15 million.
Founded in 2006, Greycroft has raised relatively small amounts for its previous funds. Its first raise was $75 million, which it invested in 34 companies. The firm operates on the premise that VCs often front too much cash during the earliest stages of a company’s development. In contrast, Greycroft invests small amounts, say $500,000 to $5 million, in early stage companies and then increases investment as they grow.
The strategy seems to be working for Greycroft. For example, it invested early in Marker Studios, which Disney later bought for $500 million cash plus another $450 million for based on performance.
This is the first time Greycroft has raised a fund for investment in later stage companies. In its last fund, it focused on first time investments in digital content syndication, online advertising, software-as-a-service, mobile content, and gaming.
One reason Greycroft wants to fund later stage companies is that it wants to continue to grow companies it invested in early. ” We have a lot of really attractive later stage companies with pro-rata rights to invest,” says founding partner Dana Settle. As a result, half of the 15-20 later stage companies that Greycroft invests in will likely come from its current portfolio.
Still, this marks a new opportunity for later stage companies to cash in on some funding, a difficult arena to compete in.
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