Monday, March 30, 2009

Newest Charles River Ventures fund closes at $320M

By Galen Moore

Charles River Ventures reports it has closed its 14th investment fund at $320 million. Earlier reports had valued the fund at $300 million.

The new fund brings Waltham venture firm CRV’s total assets under management to about $2.1 billion, according to the company. The firm said it will use its new fund, called CRP XIV, to continue investing in early-stage information technology companies in communications, Internet and software. The company plans to add investments in companies focused on energy and intellectual property, today’s press release stated.

CRV’s last fund, CRP XIII, closed in April of 2007 at $285 million.

Last year, Charles River and its co-investors in EqualLogic Inc. closed the biggest VC-backed merger-and-acquisition deal of 2008 with the $1.4 billion sale of the Nashua, N.H.-based data services company to Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL), a deal announced in November of 2007. Co-investors included Focus Ventures, Sigma Partners and TD Capital Technology Ventures.

Earlier this year, Charles River portfolio company mValent Inc., a Waltham-based maker of application configuration software, was acquired by Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL). Investors had put over $20 million into mValent, but the terms of that deal were not disclosed.