Lerer Ventures, one of the better known seed stage venture capital funds based out of New York, is raising a $30 million fund, according to its Form D filed today with the SEC. It’s the third fund in the venture firm’s history and aims to raise the bar a bit from Lerer’s second fund, of $25 million, which it raised in May 2011. (Its maiden fund was worth $8 million and was raised in early 2010.) [Update below.]
For those unfamiliar, Lerer Ventures is an NYC-based firm that invests in early-stage startups and companies, most often as part of seed and Series A investments. The firm was founded by Ken Lerer, the former chairman and co-founder of The Huffington Post and current chairman of betaworks and Buzzfeed.
His son, Ben Lerer, perhaps better known as a co-founder of Thrillist, is also a partner at the venture firm, along with former Huffington Post CEO and Softbank partner, Eric Hippeau. (With Jonah Peretti advising, it may seem somewhat surprising the firm isn’t named HuffPo Ventures.)
The firm has made some 85 investments to date, the majority of which have been in NYC-based (and media-focused) startups. Lerer portfolio companies include, to name a few: Appsfire, Adaptly, Backplane, Birchbox, Chartbeat, ClassDojo, IFTTT, Newsle, Pando, Pulse, Qwiki, Ridejoy, Simple, Venmo, and Warby Parker.
Portfolio companies that have recently exited include GroupMe (acquired by Skype for $41 million), Hipster (acquired by Aol), and DailyBooth (talent acquisition by Airbnb).
More on Lerer’s second fund here.
Update: Having closed its third fund, Lerer Ventures officially announced its $36 million fund on Wednesday, October 24th.
