Fund performance: Menlo scores top two spots in Washington State portfolio

Funds from Menlo Ventures captured the top two spots in a Washington State Investment Board portfolio of venture holdings, according to a recent fund performance report.

The two Menlo funds are among 19 that the state pension manager holds with vintages of 2000 to 2014. One of the funds, Menlo Ventures XI, is likely to rank among the top performers in its 2011 vintage.

The portfolio favors larger funds with a multi-stage approach to investing. Almost half of the funds are $1 billion or more in size and more than half are eclectic enough to do deals across stages.

Overall, the WSIB portfolio is a modest performer. Seven of the funds remain in negative territory and only two of the positive IRRs have performance figures in the double digits.

Those two positive performers are from Menlo. Menlo Ventures XI was well out in front of the pack with an IRR of 74.69 percent as of December, the report shows. This was down slightly from 15 months earlier, but still impressive.

Menlo Ventures X from 2006 is the second-best performer in the group with an IRR of 10.9 percent as of December, according to the report. The fund showed improvement over the 15 months.

Menlo’s $400 million Fund XI was an investor in Check, a Palo Alto, California-based manager of financial transactions, and which Intuit bought for $360 million in 2014, according to data from Thomson Reuters. The fund also backed data analytics provider BeyondCore, which Salesforce agreed to purchase in mid-August, meaning its exit should be reflected in the next portfolio report.

The firm’s $1.2 billion Fund X was raised in 2006 and boasts a number of liquidity events to its credit, including the TeleNav IPO, as well as the acquisitions of CellFire, Flurry and PlaySpan, among others.

New Enterprise Associates 12 from 2006 ranked third in the WSIB portfolio with an IRR of 9.34 percent and the Mobius Technology Ventures Side Fund VI is in fourth place.

Other funds in the portfolio are from U.S. Venture Partners, Essex Woodlands Health Ventures and Oak Investment Partners.

The full list of the 19 funds can be found in the accompanying table with commitments, distributions and IRRs.