- New York City-based venture firm Valar Ventures has fully raised $150 million for a new fund called Valar Fund V
Valar Ventures — a New York City-based venture firm — recently filed SEC paperwork indicating that it has fully raised $150 million for a new fund called Valar Fund V. This is Valar’s largest flagship venture capital fund that has been raised to date. Last year, Valar’s fourth fund closed at just over $133 million and the prior funds were $100 million each.
According to Crunchbase, an initial Form D disclosure was made for Fund V on January 14, 2019. And the filing indicates that the fund did not formally close its first capital until April 1, 2019. Valar Fund V had closed capital from 57 investors. And the venture firm paid $666,600 to New York-based Mercury Capital Advisors and London-based Astir Capital Advisors for acting as placement agents for the transaction. The filing lists two managing members for the fund including firm founders James Fitzgerald and Andrew McCormack. Valar Ventures operating partner Reuben Kobulnik will also likely be a decision-maker for the fund along with founding partner Peter Thiel (billionaire investor and PayPal and Palantir co-founder).
Valar Ventures actually spun off of Thiel’s family office called Thiel Capital in 2014. And prior to launching Valar, Fitzgerald was COO and general counsel to Thiel Capital. And McCormack has been working with Thiel since the PayPal days in 2001 and helped him launch the Clarium Capital hedge fund in 2002.
Valar Ventures generally invests in companies at the seed and early stage. And one of the venture firm’s latest investments was in BlockFi. Some of the firm’s other investments include N26, IrisVR, Kafene, and Taxfix.
