Chamath Palihapitiya is reportedly re-focusing Social Capital, his venture outfit, on earlier stage companies.
As part of that shift, his Palo Alto venture firm's next fund — its fifth — will be significantly smaller and will have a more narrow focus than he originally planned,Thursday, citing a letter Palihapitiya sent to investors. He now plans to raise about $1 billion for the fund — instead of"billions" — and no longer plans to use it to back more mature startups or to make non-traditional venture investments, according to the report.
"While our early stage portfolio continued to thrive, we were disappointed in the broader growth stages of technology investing and their interest in valuation sobriety," Palihapitiya said in the letter, according to Axios. Palihapitiya himself will provide nearly 20% of the new fund's capital, according to the report. His contribution will likely included shares in companies backed by Social Capital's fourth fund, in which he was the sole investor, Axios reported.Xpansiv CBL Holding Group,
San Francisco, $125 million: Bank of America and Goldman Sachs invested in the latest round for this provider of an online marketplace for carbon emissions, water and other environmental commodities.San Francisco, $22 million: Norwest Venture Partners led the Series A round for this developer of software designed to help companies retain customers inadvertently lost due to failed payment transactions. Atomic, Transpose Platform and Spring Tide Capital also invested.