Can Kleiner Perkins regain its old magic with its new $700 million fund?
Kleiner Perkins raised another fund to invest in early-stage companies.
For its 19th fund, Kleiner Perkins has raised $700 million to invest in early-stage companies across sectors including enterprise, consumer, fintech, and healthcare.
The team consists of longtime partners Ted Schlein and Wen Hsieh and relative newcomers Mamoon Hamid and Ilya Fushman. In the last year, they invested in 30 seed and Series A round companies, including Rippling, Cameo, and Propel.
When the storied firm raised its last fund in February 2019, the slogan was “Back to the Future,” indicating a return to Kleiner’s roots. But there wasn’t much of the old Kleiner DNA left at the firm to help that goal.
Kleiner wanted to “return to its roots” because early-stage is where the big money is made. The 47-year-old firm used to be a hit machine, making investments in the early rounds of knockout companies like Google, Amazon, and Electronic Arts, that went on to become industry titans. But Kleiner’s glory days ended years ago.
The firm missed the early window on some of the biggest deals that defined the last decade — Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. Returns across its early-stage practice had suffered as a result. I detailed Kleiner’s rise, fall, and fracture in my feature story, “How The Kleiner Perkins Empire Fell.”
Now, Kleiner’s slogan for its latest fund is to deliver “Returns of the Jedi.” But no catchy phrase nor Luke Skywalker can regain that old Kleiner magic. Only stellar returns can do that.
REALLY?: Alright, can someone explain to me why Quibi, the short-form video streaming company, needed to raise even more money? The startup already had a war chest of capital, but it just raised another $750 million.
In other words, investors have given a company with no live product a whopping $1.75 billion in total funding so far. Its offering of more than 50 original shows is scheduled to launch on April 6. Like I said in my Quibi hot take in January, for all this money and all this talk, I really hope the future Quibi’s envisioning becomes reality.
A NEW FORTUNE: It’s a big day for Fortune. We’re launching a three-tier membership program, starting at less than $1 a week. Readers get a 50% discount today. You can see your options here.
Term Sheet and other Fortune newsletters will remain free to sign up for and read via email, but you’ll need a subscription in order to access the web version of newsletter stories and gain access to Fortune’s full archive.
Feel free to send your feedback to feedback@fortune.com for general questions and support@fortune.com for specific questions about your subscription.
Polina Marinova
Twitter: @polina_marinova
Email: polina.marinova@fortune.com