A bright spot in VC land
At the OTVS conference last week (see post “”), David McCarthy, a managing partner at Summerhill Venture Partners (formerly known as BCE Capital) moderated a panel on “exits”. In his intro, he confirmed for the first time that Summerhill is in the final throes of closing their new US$175 million fund. Although this wasn’t the first I had heard of the ultimate number raised, this was the first public confirmation. This is a great feat for the team, as the BCE (BCE:TSX) takeover process would have been more than an inconvenient backdrop for Gary et al to finish the market canvass (see post “What of BCE Capital?, July 7-07″).
Word is that all of the institutional LPs are foreign, other than BCE’s lead commitment (US$50MM?). Good for the team to have had such success in the U.S., but, where are our Canadian pension funds and life co’s? We’ve had the opportunity to look at a bunch of their portfolio companies and, trust me, these people know what they are doing.
Congrats to Gary, David and the rest of the Summerhill team.
MRM
The details on it are that it’s $150mm in a first closing with a potential of another $25 in a second closing.
BCE is in for $50mm, but it’s a bit complicated. BCE rolled their existing portfolio into the new fund based on a FMV done at time of closing. They was a one time draw from the new LPs to BCE to buy the LPs interest in the existing portfolio. What the value of the existing portfolio was at time of closing I don’t know. So I don’t know how much is left to be drawn on the ‘committed’ capital. Based on the 12 companies they list on their website, it is likely in the 10s of millions.
Also, yes, all the LPs except BCE are US.