Foundry Group, an venture that is 18-year-old with nearly $3.5 billion in assets under management, has quietly decided to shut down and not raise any more funds. The move was unexpected considering that the firm announced a $500 million fund year.Foundry 2022Boulder that is last Colorado-based Foundry initially launched that its fund that is current would its last on January 19. The venture firm had been investing since 2007, according to Crunchbase, and had announced the $500 million fund,
— its that is eighth in of 2023.Over many years, Foundry has purchased a lot more than 200 businesses and almost 50 endeavor companies, based on co-founder and lover Seth Levine.
It had supported the kind of Fitbit, Zynga and AvidXchange, amongst others.
whenever For Millionaires reached off to Levine, he declined to touch upon the decision that is firm’s shutter, and instead pointed to blogs he’d written. He did, however, confirm an unspecified number of departures at the firm, if they were layoffs or voluntary.
In although he did not clarify one , he recognized that the decision that is firm’s completely shut down was an unusual one.
He wrote: “While VC firms rarely make decisions like this, it’s precisely what we planned to do when we started Foundry in 2006. From our founding, we intentionally decided not to build a legacy or firm that is generational one supposed to stay beyond the tenure associated with the founding partners. Alternatively, we meant to concentrate on the work of spending, re-evaluating each prospective fund that is new our fundraising cadence required…
We’ve had several moments over the last decade where we thought the fund we were raising might be our last. Each of those right times, after expression and conversation, we made a decision to boost another investment. Not this time around. Foundry 2022 will likely be our fund that is last.*)What’s nextDenver Business JournalFoundry still has 33% to 40% left out of that fund to invest, Levine told the . In his blog, Levine said specifically
the firm plans to “continue to lead Series A and B financings” out of the fund.
The move raises questions for its portfolio companies. Foundry says it will continue to invest out of its fund that is newest, however for creators, accepting money from a company this is certainly winding down is a risk and may make securing follow-on money that much more difficult. Denver Business JournalMeanwhile, Levine maintained to your it has investments.”In that he expects all the funds to be deployed by
around 2026 and that the firm will then “still work with businesses in which his personal
, Levine wrote: “blog postWe raised our last fund that is foundry a fortuitous time, in the same way the areas cooled off (it’s a lot of fun is spending), and now we have actually another 2 yrs approximately of the latest opportunities to appear ahead to. And Of Course 10 years or longer of use the profile after that.”The trader additionally informed the Denver company Journal he would “be with Foundry until its tasks are entirely done,” incorporating that co-founder Brad Feld and Chris that is partner Moody to do the same.” He could not say what the other partners would “get up to in the next years that are few”
In her very own announced it would stop investing in new companies Foundry partner Jaclyn Hester blogged as we deploy the remainder of the 2022 fund over the next few years.”
Foundry is not the only venture firm to recently unexpectedly shut down that she was “f(*)ocused on supporting our portfolio and leading new early-stage rounds. In December, Boston-based OpenView abruptly (*) less than per year after (*)raising $570 million(*) for the 7th investment.(*)