NextView Ventures closed on its second fund with $40 million in capital commitments on Thursday.
NextView Ventures II is double that of the Boston venture capital firm’s first fund. David Beisel, Rob Go and Lee Hower founded the firm in mid-2010 to invest in “seed-stage companies pursuing internet-enabled innovation,” according to Go’s blog post.
NextView has disclosed 32 investments so far, five of which have exited.
In early 2012, two portfolio startups sold: Rentjuice was acquired by Zillow for $40 million, and Hyperpublic was acquired by Groupon (terms not disclosed). In winter 2014, Yahoo! scooped up social diary startup Wander for a price north of $10 million. Most recently, NYC-based ad tech startup TapCommerce was bought by Twitter for around $100 million.
“As a result, we have been able to return a nice chunk of the first fund, with many of our most promising portfolio companies still in play and progressing rapidly,” wrote Go.
According to NextView, 75 percent of its portfolio companies have gone on to raise a Series A round, which is three times the industry average. A third of NextView’s portfolio was pre-product in Fund I, and half of it was consumer-facing.
The firm has led roughly two-thirds of the seed rounds it has participated in. The bigger second fund will allow NextView to continue to lead these early-stage rounds as they become increasingly larger, explained Go:
Today, seed rounds are increasingly larger, sometimes creeping up to $2M. We want to be able to comfortably lead these rounds and speak for 1/3 – 1/2 of the capital or more. Our new fund size allows us to do that and continue to play the part of the lead investor.
In March 2014, the firm brought aboard former HubSpot senior manager of marketing, Jay Acunzo, as the director of platform and community.
Added Go, “The full story of the fund’s performance is still being written, but we are optimistic about what lies ahead.”
Image via NextView
