There is a (sort-of) new fund in Boston - Volition Capital has just formed by spinning out of Fidelity as an independent growth capital fund. The old Fidelity Ventures group has a new name, but similar focus. The move was announced yesterday, January 11 2010 and is now being reported in the press.
Volition Capital’s Investment Focus
Volition’s investment focus may be changing a bit from what it was when the group was part of Fidelity Ventures. The fund will invest in growing, founder-owned tech businesses based in the U.S. and Canada. I’m not quite sure how this compares to the old Fidelity Ventures, because I know that they invest in VC funded businesses (like SeatWave). Volition is defining “growth companies” as ones that have between $5 million and $50 million in revenue. I do not believe they require the companies to be cash flow positive, but this may have changed as well since leaving the Fidelity umbrella. Volition Capital specializes in software, Internet, information services and tech-enabled services companies.
Volition’s portfolio
Since the group will be managing the old Fidelity Ventures portfolio they will be starting out with legacy investments. The firm’s portfolio comprises 26 companies in the United States and Europe. Having this existing portfolio is probably a good thing for them, since they’ve got some solid companies in their portfolio and this will help the group establish the “track record” they’ll need to raise their first stand-alone fund. Some of these companies include Intralinks, BlackDuck Software, Flock and Seatwave. It is interesting because on their portfolio page they indicate if an investment is an early stage investment or a growth investment - and they seem to be pretty evenly split early stage and growth.
Good luck to the Volition Capital team, including Larry Cheng and Geraldine Alias!
I hope that the team is able to successfully manage out their existing portfolio, make a few new good investments out of their remaining fund and raise a new fund!
