NextGen Capital Completes Fund II –

FAIRFAX, Va. – NextGen Capital LLC recently held a $15 million first close on NextGen Fund II, which is slated to wrap this spring on its $25 million target, said Carl Eckstein, a founder and director of the firm.

Focused on early-stage information technology, Internet and communications companies, the fund will back between 20 and 30 companies with individual investments of $250,000 to $2 million. Additionally, for the first time, the firm has set aside 10% of the fund for seed-stage investments because of the growth of those opportunities – some 5 to 10 seed stage business plans pass their desks each week, Eckstein said.

NextGen typically backs companies headquartered in the mid-Atlantic United States, allowing its investment team and limited partners to easily interact with the management teams of portfolio companies, Eckstein said.

Fund II already has invested in Invertix LLC, a Virginia-based telecommunications company, and RegistrationVillage.com Inc., a Maryland-based online provider of registrations, manuals, warranties, recall notices and other information for consumer and business products.

The firm’s previous vehicle, the $10 million Next Generation Fund is completely invested in 11 companies, including Edutest, Sandbox Entertainment Corp. and SynXis Corp.

Limited partners for the first fund were mostly high-net-worth executives from the technology and financial sectors, most of whom have decided to reinvest in Fund II. They might be joined by a handful of institutional investors, Eckstein said.

The NextGen investment team is comprised of Eckstein, Managing Director Zimri Putney, Director Stefan Strein and Associate Raffy Ekhsigian.