Investors cool toward RWI II

RWI Ventures has had a tough time corralling support for its second fund. The six-year-old firm is just over halfway toward its $100 million target and seems to be stalled. It recently closed $56.2 million toward RWI Ventures II, according to regulatory filings. That’s just slightly more than the $52 million it had raised by the end of June.

The fund was launched in December 2005, documents show.

The slow pace of fund-raising is surprising. RWI, based in Menlo Park, Calif., had two IPOs and three acquisitions from of its $103 million first fund, raised in 2000.

Software maker PDF Solutions (Nasdqa: PDFS) went public with a $54 million IPO in 2001 after it had raised a little more than $10 million from RWI, Telos Venture Partners, U.S. Venture Partners and other investors. Its market capitalization is now more than $400 million. Glucose monitoring company DexCom (Nasdaq: DXCM) went public in a $55 million offering in 2005 after it raised $74.5 million from 11 firms over four rounds. Its market capitalization is now just under $300 million. And fabless semiconductor company Vimicro International (Nasdaq: VMIC) went public in a $87 million offering in 2005 after it had raised almost $25 million from RWI, The Capital Group, General Atlantic and Fujitsu Microelectronics. Its market capitalization is now over $400 million.

RWI’s acquisitions have not been as impressive. It sold search company Softface, which had raised $18 million from VCs, for $8 million in 2004. It sold software maker Intraspect Software, which had raised more than $86 million from VCs, for $20.3 million in 2003. And it sold e-commerce company Cybrant, which had raised $31.8 million from VCs, for $6.8 million in 2002.

The St. Paul Teachers’ Retirement Fund Association is an investor in fund II along with 31 other investors, filings show.

RWI isn’t the only firm daunted, at least in part, by its 2000 vintage. Earlier this month, Voyager Capital edged closer toward its third fund, closing on $93 million, just $5 million more than what it had closed on in May. Voyager has not had an IPO since the dot-com boom, according to Thomson Financial (publisher of PE Week).