Chicago venture capital firm Origin Ventures announced today it has closed its fourth fund, a significant milestone for the Midwest firm best known for its success as an early investor in Grubhub.
Origin said Thursday it has officially closed its fourth fund at $80 million, more that doubling its previous fund. Origin has $135 million in total assets under management.
Origin Partner Jason Heltzer wouldn't say what percentage of the fund has already been deployed, but said the fund has so far been used to invest in five startups: Tock, Tovala, AppDetex, Kidizen and Avant.
Heltzer said Origin expects to make around 16-20 deals through the latest fund.
“There are not many funds in the Midwest that have gotten to fund four,” he said. “It’s a pretty big milestone to get to this point.”
Founded in 1999, Origin primarily makes Series A investments of between $1 million and $3 million. Its big win to date has been Grubhub, the Chicago-based online food delivery company that went public in 2014. Origin led Grubhub’s first two investment rounds when it was still at startup at the University of Chicago.
Heltzer wouldn’t disclosed the size of the return, but called Grubhub a “blockbuster deal” for the firm. “We’re really proud with what we did there in helping [Grubhub] through its early days,” he said.
Other successful exits for Origin include iNest, a real estate startup that sold to Lending Tree in 2004. Origin closed its second fund in 2005 at $15.5 million, and closed its third in 2013 at $39 million.
Origin also announced Thursday that it is opening an office in Salt Lake City. Brent Hill, a partner who joined Origin in 2013 after working at Twitter and Google, will be based in Salt Lake and focused on Rocky Mountain and West Coast investments.
