Maxwell gets smart on new fund

Scott Maxwell is once again posting items on his blog (http://scottmaxwell.wordpress.com), which can mean only one thing—he has launched his new venture firm and is free to talk about it.

Maxwell last week announced the launch of Boston-based OpenView Venture Partners, which has raised a $100 million fund to invest in expansion stage deals. Maxwell, who is a former managing director at Insight Venture Partners, formed the new fund with many of his Insight colleagues, such as Venture Partner Firas Raouf; and Associates Kobie Fuller and Igor Altman. Maxwell expects OpenView to collaborate with Insight on existing Insight portfolio companies and other deals. Also, Maxwell will remain on the board of his previous portfolio companies and Insight founder Jeff Horing will act as special advisor to OpenView.

Maxwell says his new firm will focus on infotech deals, particularly companies that configure software, data, and/or hardware into packages that provide meaningful value to their users. He says that OpenView will seek a minority ownership of $5 million to $10 million in companies with good historic growth.