The Oregon Investment Council announced a new venture commitment and a growth equity commitment made by the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).
The Pacific Northwest-based organization made a $30 million commitment to Mayfield XVI and a $20 million commitment to Mayfield Select II. The organization announced the commitments in April and confirmed them to the Venture Capital Journal.
Both funds closed on a combined $750 million in March. Mayfield XVI raised $475 million and will invest in early-stage consumer and enterprise companies. Mayfield Select II closed on $275 million and will target late-stage rounds from both existing portfolio companies and new opportunities.
Previously, Mayfield XV closed on $400 million and Mayfield Select I closed on $125 million in April 2016.
The two new funds of Mayfield also grabbed commitments from the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System, Texas County and District Retirement System and the Illinois Municipal Retirement System.
PERS has an existing relationship with Mayfield and has invested in multiple other funds from the manager, including Mayfield XV, Mayfield XIV and Mayfield Select I.
The Oregon pension doesn’t have a specific mandate to invest in venture and has done so off and on over the last decade, mainly into repeat managers. Last year, the fund committed $50 million to USV 2019 and USV Opportunity 2019, both managed by Union Square Ventures, an existing relationship.
Prior to that, the fund committed to three GGV Capital funds including $64 million to GGV Capital VII, $20 million for GGV Discovery II and $16 million to GGV Capital VII Plus.
Venture lives in the pension’s private equity bucket. The PE strategy has a 17.5 percent target and was overweight at 21.4 percent, and worth more than $15.4 billion, at the end of June 2019.
The Oregon Public Employees’ Retirement system was founded in 1946 and currently serves more than 374,000 active and retired members. The pension has more than $70 billion in assets under management.