alumni, is spreading its bets with a new fund to invest in larger companies even as it slims down its roster of dealmakers.on Thursday, creating Slow Ventures' first official effort to expand from the smaller, seed-stage investments that have until now been its bread and butter. Slow also said it has raised its fourth fund focusing on seed stage startups for $165 million — the firm's largest to date.
Colleran explained that the Opportunity fund will focus on investing between $3 million and $5 million in growth businesses in later rounds. Colleran, Morin and Sam Lessin were early Facebook employees and started Slow Ventures in 2011. Eight years later, the firm has about $470 million under management between the four seed funds and the new Opportunity fund. According to Colleran, Slow counts nearly 150 different high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments, fund of funds, state pension funds, a hospital, and other venture capital firms as limited partners across the five funds.
"In the same month we may be making investments in consumer brands, crypto/blockchain, life sciences, software, and even rockets/space…. But many of those investments will be based more on the team than the initial product idea or business model," Colleran said.