Alsop-Louie closes first fund

Alsop-Louie Partners closed its inaugural fund after a year of fund-raising. The firm secured the $75 million it targeted and held a launch party last week at Tres Agaves, a trendy Mexican restaurant in San Francisco.

Rumor of the fund’s imminent close circulated at the end of the summer last year. PE Week reported the firm had all but closed in November, but that one of the firm’s limited partners wanted to up its allocation by as much as $10 million, which had slowed the process.

The firm has made at least one known investment so far. It backed Duality, a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup developing mobile communications services for businesses with a $2 million first round, according to a regulatory filing.

San Francisco-based Alsop-Louie has two general partners—Stewart Alsop and Gilman Louie—and one associate, Corey Reese. The firm also has an entrepreneur-in-residence, Lenny Raymond, who started three companies before joining he firm.

Alsop—a former editor-in-chief and executive vice-president of InfoWorld magazine—joined New Enterprise Associates as a venture partner in 1996. He was promoted to partner in 1998 and left the firm at the end of 2004. He led the firm’s investments in TiVo and Xfire. About two years ago, Alsop wrote in a memo to his colleagues that he wanted to “see if I can design a working life for myself that is focused entirely on working with a few early stage companies.”

His plan, as early as May 2005, was to raise a venture fund under the name Agenda Capital. But he scuttled that plan when he partnered with Louie, who left In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s investment arm, at the end of 2005.

The firm operates a blog, where its partners have reviewed mobile phone products and solicited improvements on consumer Internet services. —Alexander Haislip