Alternative investment firm HarbourVest Partners, LLC has announced the final close of its secondary fund at $2.9 billion. The fund, called Dover Street VII LP, will make secondary investments in venture capital, leveraged buyout, and other private equity assets.
There were 197 institutional investors in the fund which included corporate pensions, public pensions, endowments, and foundations located in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. HarbourVest has an Asia office in Hong Kong headed by Philip M. Bilden.
Many endowment and pension funds have seen drastic fall in assets due to the global meltdown, and are looking to sell their investments in PE & VC funds in order to gain liquidity.
“A critical component to our success is our ability to leverage the HarbourVest platform and more specifically our relationships with general partners, many of which are attributable to our primary and direct investment businesses as well as our secondary practice, to gain insights about the expected performance of portfolio companies, the funds, and the managers we evaluate in a secondary opportunity," said said Fred Maynard, Managing Director at HarbourVest Partners, in
a release.
HarbourVest's new fund recently partnered with the Lehman Brothers Venture Partners team to acquire latters' limited partner interests and helped the Lehman team spin-out and form an independent entity, Tenaya Capital.