Foundry Group has raised a fourth fund, called Foundry Group Select. This new fund is $225 million (the same size as Foundry’s previous funds), but has a much different focus.
This fund is purely for late-stage growth rounds in Foundry’s existing portfolio companies. The firm says it will invest up to $25 million into companies that Foundry has backed through its previous funds. As managing director Brad Feld writes, Foundry has been limited in the amount it can invest in later stage rounds due to the firm’s early-stage strategy.
The Foundry Group invests in early-stage North American-based software and IT companies, following a philosophy it outlined back in 2008, “thematic investing.” Startups that Foundry has backed include Zynga, Jiraffe, Fitbit, MakerBot, Awe.sm, Modular Robots, and others. Common areas where the fund invests in include storage, semiconductors, enterprise software, consumer Internet, communications equipment, etc.
Foundry, which raised a new $225 million fund last fall, also just debuted its FG Angel syndicate on AngelList a few weeks ago, which was one of the first VC firms to jump into the syndicates pool. Foundry said it would be investing as much as $2.5 million with a goal of making 50 investments between now and the end of 2014 in companies that list on AngelList.
The fund may have a number of startups in the portfolio that are at a later stage, as it’s been over five years since the firm’s first fund. SendGrid, Fitbit (which just raised $43 million in new funding) and a number of others that Foundry backed early years ago, may eventually raise late-stage growth funding. While Foundry did participate in Fitbit’s recent funding, it’s unclear if Fitbit’s recent round received investment from Foundry Group Select.
It should be interesting to see if other smaller, early-stage VCs will start raising separate funds to get into late-stage investing. Stay tuned.