Greycroft has raised more than $1 billion in capital commitments across new funds, including over $980 million for its flagship venture and growth funds, Partners VII and Growth IV.
It’s a huge figure for a single firm to raise right now and the fruit of more than a year’s labor. In Q1 2023, US VC firms raised $11.7 billion in committed capital across 99 funds, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.
Greycroft is an established manager with a track record in the consumer and enterprise software verticals that includes some landslide victories. It led gaming company Scopely‘s Series B at a $400 million valuation in 2016; earlier this month, the startup agreed to be sold for $4.9 billion to Savvy Games Group, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
But even with its history of returns, the firm took a long time to close its latest funding pool and fell short of its initial targets.
Greycroft started raising as early as December 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time, when conversations between LPs and GPs were far rosier. Records of LP commitments to Greycroft show that some institutional investors, such as the El Paso County Retirement Plan, committed to the funds in early 2022.
Fundraising for growth-stage funds has been hit particularly hard by the VC downturn as LPs dial back their venture commitments to rebalance their portfolios. Initial reports of Greycroft’s fundraise in late 2021 cited a goal of $1 billion for Growth IV alone.
Dana Settle, a co-founder of the New York- and Los Angeles-based firm, has attributed Greycroft’s success in part to its being outside Silicon Valley and focusing on next-generation technology. Founded in 2006, Greycroft manages more than $3 billion.
The firm co-led a Series B for African fintech Flutterwave at a $210 million valuation in 2020. The company is now IPO-bound and most recently valued at $3 billion. Greycroft’s investments in buzzy and consumer-facing products have paid dividends, with exits from digital media company Axios and dating app Bumble.
Greycroft’s fundraising efforts benefit from its status as an established fund manager. “Their expansive coverage of the venture lifecycle offers a level of diversification to their LPs that more nascent managers with smaller-sized funds cannot,” said PitchBook analyst Max Navas.
Across the board, VC’s era of billion-dollar funds appears to be a transient one. 2022 was a record year for mega-funds in the US, totaling 35 funds with over $1 billion in committed capital. But much of that spilled over from the heyday of 2021.
Broken down by quarter, the majority of funds closed on over $1 billion last year were completed early on. In Q4 2022, just two billion-dollar funds closed in the US.
Read more: The Transient Era of Billion-Dollar Funds
Learn about our editorial standards.
