Partech to party soon with $300M close

Partech International—which invests in tech and health care companies—has raised about $150 million for its fifth fund, which is targeted at $300 million.

Partner Dave Welsh says that the firm has not yet set a date for its final close. According to a recent regulatory filing, the firm has secured $96.5 million in commitments from 13 investors, but Welsh says Partech has raised $50 million in additional commitments since the filing. The firm’s fourth fund, raised in 2000, closed at $300 million.

The San Francisco-based firm counts 1133 West and Mellon Bank, as a trustee for the Bell Atlantic Master Trust, among its limited partners. Partech is picking up a few new LPs in fund V, but the majority of its investors were participants in the last fund, Welsh says.

Partech has had some recent success. It sold Akimbi to VMware for an undisclosed amount in June. Akimbi had a post-money valuation of $20 million in 2005 after it raised an $8 million Series B round from Partech and other investors. Partech also backed Visicu (Nasdaq: EICU), which raised $18.25 million in VC funding before launching a $96 million IPO in April. Visicu offered shares at $16 and enjoyed a first day rise to nearly $25. But by mid-September, Visicu’s stock was trading at just above $9 a share, a 52-week low.

Partech Partner Glenn Solomon left the firm to join Granite Global Ventures in March, and Partech has since re-focused its fund to concentrate more on early stage deals. “We’ve always historically been earlier stage investors,” Welsh says. “We think that’s the best place to spend time.”

Partech’s fifth fund will continue the firm’s sector focus on software, Internet applications, health care information technologies and communications components. It may do a cleantech investment or two, but Welsch says the firm is reluctant to dive head first into the sector. Partech has twice participated in investment rounds of Konarka Technologies Inc., a Lowell, Mass.-based developer of photovoltaic materials. Most recently, Konarka raised $20 million in February from Partech and several other investors in a late stage round. —Alexander Haislip