Kleiner Perkins raises two funds totaling $1.4B

The firm raised a $1 billion growth fund, and a $400M early-stage fund

Despite being one the most established venture firms in Silicon Valley, Kleiner Perkin Caufield & Byershas had a rough time lately, with a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit from former partner Ellen Pao, as well as the announcement from Founding John Doerr in March that he will become Chairman of the firm, rather than being a general partner in any of its funds.

None of that stopped the firm from becoming the latest to raise a big new fund, even in the current market downturn. On Wednesday, it was revealed, via two filings with the SEC, that KPCB has raised $1.4 billion across two funds/ 

The first is a $1 billion fund, called KPCB Digital Growth Fund III. Listed on in the filing are Mary Meeker, Ted Schlein, Mood Rowghani and Noah Knauf. The second fund is a $400 million fund, its 17th early-stage fund. Called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers XVII, the filing lists Schlein, Mike Abbott, Eric Feng, Beth Seidenberg and Wen Hsieh as managers. 

A report in May had pegged the target at $1.3 billion, across an $800 million growth fund, and a $500 early-stage fund. 

Founded in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers focuses its investments in three categories: digital, clean tech and life sciences. It has made more than 500 investments including in AOL, Amazon, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, WebMD and Zynga.

Some of its more recent investments include Qumulo, Ionic Security, BetterWorks, DoorDash, Instart Logic, Looker, AppDymanics, and Turo.

The last time the firm raised a fund was back in 2014, when it got $1.2 billion, which it also split between an early-stage and a digital growth fund.

Venture funding raising in 2016

KPCB is far from the only firm to raise a big fund this year, including Founders Fund, which raised $1.3 billion for its sixth fund, for the largest fundraising commitment of the first quarter.

Others included General Catalyst, which raised an $845 million fund, and Battery Ventures, which was able to raise $950 million, in February. In March, Lightspeed Venture Partners raised $1.2 billion across two funds. In March, Accel raised a $2 billion fund, followed by another $500 million in April. 

In all, venture firms in the United States raised $12 billion in the first quarter of this year. Not only does that equal an increase of dollars by 59 percent year-to-year, it's the best fundraising quarter since Q2 of 2006, when $14.3 billion was raised. 

The fact that firms are still getting such big checks in a down market explains why deal sizes are actually going up. 

VC investments were down 18.5 percent quarter-to-quarter in Q1, but while the number of companies getting money is way down, the number of dollars actually were not affected. There was $30 billion invested in the quarter, down only 6 percent from Q1 2015, but also up 13 percent from Q4 2015, when $26.6 billion was invested.

As such, the median deal size increased from $1.6 million in Q1 2015 to $2.3 million in Q1 2016.

The largest new fund reporting commitments during the first quarter of 2016 was from 1955 Capital, which raised $200 million for the firm’s inaugural fund.  

Q2 also saw some big funds ger raised. Andreessen Horowitz closed Fund V, a $1.5 billion venture capital fund, and Accel closed its fifteenth fund with $2.8 billion in committed capital to its core fund, along with an additional $350 million for its NEA 15 Opportunity Fund. Together, that adds up a total of $3.1 billion, for the largest VC fund ever raised. 

VatorNews reached out to Kleiner Perkins for comment on the filings. We will update this story if we learn more.