Tribeca to seek $150 mln for latest early stage fund

Tribeca Venture Partners is expected to begin fundraising for its next early-stage fund in early 2020, a source said.

Tribeca Venture Partners III is seeking $150 million, a person said. The hardcap for Fund III is between $200 million to $225 million, the source said. Marketing is expected to begin in the first quarter and finish sometime in Q2, the person said.

Fund III’s target is 40 percent more than the venture firm’s second early-stage fund, which closed on $107 million in 2016. Tribeca’s first pool collected $65 million in late 2011.

Founded in 2011 by managing partners Brian Hirsch and Chip Meakem, Tribeca seeks to invest in New York companies. More than 90 percent of the dollars Tribeca has raised has gone to New York companies, the source said. The firm’s first fund included 21 companies that were based in New York.

A generalist, Tribeca focuses on sectors including consumer, fintech, edtech, SaaS, AI & machine learning, as well as marketplace models

With a bigger fund, the firm’s initial check size is expected to grow to $3 to $10 million from the current $1 to $5 million, the source said. Its strategy will remain the same. Tribeca plans to add another partner with Fund III, while staff is expected to double to eight people in 2020, the person said

Tribeca has posted three exits in roughly the past year.  AT&T last month said it would buy Clypd, a TV advertising platform. Chegg in September acquired Thinkful, an online learning platform, for $80 million. Tribeca also scored a big win in August 2018 when AT&T scooped up AppNexus. The Wall Street Journal pegged the sale of the ad tech company at $1.6 billion, making AppNexus a unicorn.

Action Item: For more information, see Tribeca’s latest form ADV here.