Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, long a leading venture firm, is talking with investors about two new funds that would total roughly $1.3 billion, CNBC reported earlier today and TechCrunch has confirmed.
Roughly two-thirds of the money would go toward a new growth stage fund; the rest would be invested through a new, early-stage fund.
The firm may have a slightly harder go of it than in the past, given that its most prominent partner, John Doerr, announced in March that he’s becoming chairman of the firm and won’t be a general partner in any new funds.
The firm has also experienced widely reported turnover in recent years and endured a drawn-out, high-profile discrimination lawsuit that detracted from its once impeccable cachet.
Meanwhile, institutional investors like pension funds and universities are being deluged with capital requests from venture firms that are back in the market sooner than some of these investors expected. A number of name-brand funds, including Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Founders Fund, have raised new, billion-dollar-plus funds this year, just two years after closing their last funds.
Indeed, Kleiner itself last raised $1.2 billion across two funds in 2014.
We’ve reached out to the firm for more information. More to come.
