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Norwest Venture Partners Raises $1.5 Billion for Fund XIV

Venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners has just raised its largest fund in its 57-year-history. The recently announced $1.5 billion fund brings the firm’s total under management to $7.5 billion, and will be used to invest primarily in the consumer, enterprise and healthcare categories.

The new mega-fund will help the Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm keep up with the growing size of checks from funds such as SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund.

Norwest closed its latest and third $1.2 billion fund, Norwest Venture Partners XIII, in January 2016. Since then, the company has made 80 new and follow-on investments across diverse stages and sectors, hired and promoted key partners, expanded its footprint in San Francisco and bolstered its portfolio services platform to support the firm’s growing network of companies. While 80% of Norwest’s portfolio is comprised of U.S.-based companies, recent successes have come out of countries such as India and Israel.

The firm says it has achieved a record past two years, with liquidity events for 30 of its portfolio companies. Norwest’s notable investments include global e-commerce platform Jet.com, which was acquired by the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, in 2016 for $3.3 billion. Last year, the firm scored big as Colgate acquired portfolio company PCA Skin and Berkshire Hathaway bought a large minority stake of Kendra Scott at a $1 billion valuation. Past investments include Casper, Lending Club, Spotify and Uber Technologies.

While based in Silicon Valley, Norwest seeks to target “businesses that have been bootstrapped, that are already profitable,” which are “rarely” found in the California tech hub, according to Norwest managing partner Jeff Crowe.

Alongside the announcement of the new fund, Norwest said that it will promote Jon Kossow from general partner to managing partner. Jon has two decades of investing experience, focused on growth equity investments across sectors. Norwest’s Lisa Wu has also been promoted to partner after six years with the firm, focused on consumer, internet, digital commerce and next generation marketplace opportunities.