Industry Ventures deploys 15% of latest fund

Industry Ventures has deployed 15 percent of its latest secondaries fund, founder and chief executive officer Hans Swildens told Secondaries Investor.

Fund VII is Industry Ventures’ largest fund to date. The fund closed on $425 million last year, alongside a special opportunities fund that raised an additional $200 million for larger secondaries transactions, according to a statement. Fund VII received commitments from 30 limited partners including the New Hampshire Retirement System and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, according to PEI’s Research and Analytics division.

Fund VII is on track to maintain its three-year investment pace, Swildens said. Each deal will average between $5 million and $10 million and 90 percent of the investments will be made in the US. The remaining 10 percent of deals will focus on Europe, primarily in London. Industry Ventures has only completed one deal in Asia during its lifetime, buying a stake in Chinese internet retailer Alibaba.

Roughly two thirds of Fund VII will be deployed in direct secondaries and one third will be deployed in various venture capital fund stakes, Swildens said. The firm has previously made direct secondaries investments in publicly-listed companies such as Facebook and Ancestry.com, according to its website. Other direct secondaries investments include business loans company OnDeck Capital and security company Trustwave. LP fund interests have previously been purchased in venture capital funds managed by Battery Ventures, DFJ and European venture capital firm Kreos Capital, according to its website.

Industry Ventures was founded in 2000 by Swildens, who previously co-founded Microline Software, a development tools and software company. Industry Ventures is based in San Francisco and has an office in Alexandria, Virginia.