New venture capital fund for seed level companies

Keywords for this post:
Business plans for venture capital

There’s $77.5 million sitting in the coffers of Formative Ventures of Los Gatos, California, waiting for those absolutely irresistible new projects.

Formative Ventures has put together this fund from investments by Harvard University, the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh, along with 10 other institutional investors.

Formative closed the new fund in August and has already made one investment, in an undisclosed open-source systems management company that remains in stealth mode. The firm is currently negotiating two other investments.

The $77.5 million fund will likely invest among 10 to 12 startups, with each receiving $5 million to $7 million. Formative is one of the few venture capital firms that plans on investing in seed level, with projected $2 million to $3 million to be invested in seed-stage and first-round opportunities, with additional capital reserved for follow-on investments.

Most investments are planned for the western U.S., predominantly in tech companies.