Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Greylock Partners has announced the closing of a $575-million fund. Greylock XIII will invest in enterprise and consumer software, services and infrastructure ventures. The firm has also appointed LinkedIn Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman as its new partner.
Greylock, which has invested in companies like Facebook and LinkedIn, has an India office in Bangalore. Arvin Babu, a partner at Greylock, looks after early stage investments in India. He joined Greylock in 2007 and is co-founder of Perfigo, a network admission control (NAC) firm and Brience, a mobile software developer. Both these firms were backed by Greylock.
The firm had recently invested $4 million in Hyderabad-based HealthHiway, an information technology firm focused on the healthcare sector. One of its other portfolio firms in India is Techprocess Solutions, an electronic payment processing company.
“In this difficult environment, all investors need to be particularly selective about the funds in which they invest. Our investment in Greylock XIII represents the lion’s share of the commitments we plan to make to venture capital funds this year,” says Andrew K. Golden, President, Princeton University Investment Co.
Bringing in Hoffman, who is also an active angel investor, will be a great addition to Greylock's team. Hoffman has invested in companies like Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Zynga, among others. Before co-founding LinkedIn, he was an executive vice president at PayPal, which was acquired by eBay. He will remain active day-to-day at LinkedIn as Executive Chairman.
"At Greylock we place a high value on hiring partners with deep operating experience at companies with explosive growth. Reid also possesses a unique understanding of consumer behavior and the dynamics of viral businesses, and that has made him one of the most sought after advisors to start-ups,” said David Sze, a partner at Greylock.
