Pequot Ventures, the $2 billion venture arm of hedge fund Pequot Capital Management, is being spun off as a separate business and renamed FirstMark Capital. Over the past dozen years, the venture firm has opened seven funds, and it currently has $1 billion in actively managed and unallocated capital. The fund focuses on emerging media and advertising, data and analytics, and infrastructure startups. In the past it was an investor in First Advantage, Netgear, StubHub (bought by eBay), and Flarion (bought by Qualcomm).
It’s current portfolio is heavy into marketplaces, gaming, and advertising startups. It includes Clickable (ad-campaign management), Elance (marketplace for freelancers), Live Gamer (marketplace for virtual games), Restricted Stock Partners (secondary market for restricted stock), Spadac (geospatial data), and WePlay (social games). “We are looking for more of the same,” says managing director Rick Heitzmann.