VCCircle

ComVentures, the US private equity fund that has invested in two Indian media companies NDTV Networks Plc and India TV, has merged with Velocity Investment Group (VIG), the investment fund formed by former Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn and former AOL chairman Jon Miller. Interestingly, VIG was formed with the backing of private equity fund General Atlantic. The merger with ComVentures shows that GA's involvement in VIG is not a formal arrangement.
ComVentures will add more than $1.5 billion in assets into the merged entity, which will be called Velocity Investment Group only. Now ComVentures' partners David Britts, Keyur Patel and Roland Van der Meer , and VIG's Miller and Levinsohn will be the general partners in the merged entity. The latter two were advising ComVentures in the past one year.
The new investment firm will provide financing for seed, early stage and growth companies with an emphasis on digital media and communications globally. The fund will invest as little as $100,000 to as much as $30 million. VIG is said to be raising another round of funding by 2008. ComVentures had invested $20 million in NDTV Networks and $11.5 million in fast growing Hindi news channel India TV (through Fuse+Media). (See PaidContent and GigaOm)