Ehrenberg’s IA Ventures Officially Announces Close of Second Fund

Data-focused venture firm IA Ventures formally announced on its blog today that it had raised a second fund totaling “just over $105 million.” PeHUB reported on Oct. 27 that the firm was raising the fund and had already closed on $97.75 million for IA Venture Strategies Fund II LP, which listed a target of $110 million.

The new fund “allows us to pursue the same investment strategy we followed in Fund I – investing in companies that create competitive advantage through data,” IA Ventures wrote on its blog. “Just like Fund I, we will continue to invest in strong founders at the Seed, Series A, and even sometimes Series B stage. As part of this fund we will reserve even more heavily for follow-on investments, continuing to view our initial investment decision as the beginning of a long and rewarding relationship.”

As peHUB previously reported, IA Ventures was founded by Roger Ehrenberg, who is the firm’s managing partner. It debuted in December 2010 with a $50 million fund and has invested it quickly. It lists 22 companies in its portfolio, up from 19 in late October. Companies in the portfolio include BankSimple, BillGuard, Kohort, Metamarkets, Sulia, The Trade Desk and Yipit.

Ehrenberg started out in the hedge fund business before turning to venture capital. At one time, he was CEO of DB Advisors, Deutsche Bank’s internal hedge fund trading platform “where his 130-person team managed $6 billion in capital across multiple strategies with offices in New York, London and Hong Kong,” according to his bio on IA Ventures’ website.

Before starting IA Ventures, Ehrenberg was an angel investor with seed stage firm IA Capital Partners from 2004 to 2009. During that time, he seeded 40 companies, including Invite Media (sold to Google), MyTrade (sold to TD Ameritrade), TweetDeck (sold to Twitter) and Wallstrip (sold to CBS Interactive), the website states.

Ehrenberg currently sits on the boards of Simple, Datasift, Kinetic Global Markets, Metamarkets, Recorded Future, and The Trade Desk, and is a board observer for SavingStar, according to the website.