Top silicon valley Investor Mary Meeker is reportedly looking planning to raise around $1.25 billion for her debut growth fund, reports Business Insider citing multiple sources aware of the development. If this indeed happens, it will be among the largest ever to be raised by a female-led fund.
However, it is not unusual to see growth funds taking in larger amounts of capital to fuel late-stage companies, given that Softbank Vision Fund has raised about $100 billion, setting a new precedent for private funding.
As for Mary Meeker’s own growth fund, she had earlier said at a conference that she plans to form her own late-stage investment firm with three of her Kleiner Perkins colleagues, including Mood Rowghani, Noah Knauf, and Juliet Baubigny.
Meeker was called the “Queen of the Internet” for her prescient analysis of internet stocks in the early 2000s, and she oversaw late-stage investments for more than 10 years at Kleiner Perkins. Her departure comes as KP was weighing whether or not to raise another growth fund.
During her tenure at Kleiner Perkins, Mary Meeker spearheaded the firm’s digital growth fund, which typically took in about $1 billion in capital. She will reportedly continue to oversee the allocation of Kleiner’s third growth fund and participate in the management of the firm’s portfolio companies over the next several years.
