Greylock Partners raises $1B for its 15th fund

The firm has invested in Facebook, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Instagram, Zuora, Tumblr and Workday

For an investing market that has been down all year, with thei lowest amount being invested in over two years, there have been a surprising number of funds raised of at least $1 billion this year. 

The latest is Greylock Partners, which has raised a new fund, its 15th overall, with total capital commitments of $1 billion, it was announced on Monday.

Founded in 1965, Greylock is one of the oldest venture firms in Silicon Valley. It invests in early stage companies, typically in the seed, Series A or Series B rounds, though it also does put money into "growth rounds" as well.

Its investments are in companies in the consumer Internet space, including applications, cloud/SaaS, data center, management, networking, security and storage, and enterprise IT spaces, which includes advertising, commerce, gaming, marketplaces, media, mobile, services, and social. 

That investing strategy won;t be changing with this new fund.

"We are at an incredible moment in time for technology. Massive secular shifts, including mobile and cloud, have created a unique opportunity for scale ups across all industries," the firm wrote.

That means it will "continue to invest in consumer businesses that network people together," such as its investments in Nextdoor, Discord, GoFundMe, Medium, Convoy, and Musical.ly, as well as in "enterprise focused products and platforms that increase productivity, unlock new revenue, and make organizations more secure." Examples of those investments include AppDynamics, Cloudera, Docker, Okta, Pure Storage, and Quip.

In addition, the firm will also look for entrepreneurs and companies in spaces that include messaging, virtual reality, machine learning, and robotics.

"Given the DNA of our team, we will continue to view these largely through the lens of software, and apply our knowledge in these areas to help entrepreneurs scale up," Greylock wrote. 

Since its founding, Greylock has had over 120 profitable M&A deals, and over 170 IPOs, in its portfolio. 

Past investments have included Facebook, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Instagram, Palo Alto Networks, Tumblr, Zuora and Workday. More recently it has put money into Skyhigh Networks, Catalant, GrowingIO, Gladly Software, Convoy and Discord. 

This $1 billion fund is tied for the sixth largest raise of 2016, with Kleiner Perkins' $1 billion KPCB Digital Growth Fund III, which it closed in June, and Sapphire Ventures, which raised its $1 billion fund last month. 

They are only behind Andreessen Horowitz's Fund V, a $1.5 billion venture capital fund, that closed in June; Founders Fund, which raised a $1.3 billion fund, Founders Fund VI, in March; Accel Partners, which raised $2 billion across two funds; Norwest Venture Partners which closed a $1.2 billion fund, its eighth, in January; and TCV, which raised a $2.5 billion fund in August. 

(Image source: greylock.com)