Southeast Ventures Closes $35M Fund –

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Southeast Venture Partners, a backer of information technology companies, held a $35 million final close in April on its Southeast Information Technology Fund II L.L.C., and already committed half of the vehicle, Managing Director David Blivin said.

Southeast invests in early-stage telecommunications, enterprise management, Internet infrastructure, bandwidth enablement and e-commerce application industries south of the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area and east of Austin,Texas. The firm is willing to lead or co-lead in first round investments.

Southeast looks for companies with strong management teams that generate revenue or advances on royalties and have existing or impending strategic partnerships.

Southeast Information Technology Fund I, the firm’s first fund, closed in June 1995 at $6.1 million and is fully committed, Mr. Blivin said. The fund’s investors were primarily high-net-worth individuals who already have received returns worth two times their initial investment.

The success of the first fund led the firm to begin raising money for its second vehicle at the end of 1996. Many of Southeast’s existing individual investors immediately signed on with Fund II, allowing the firm to begin investing in portfolio companies such as KOZ.com, BuildNet, HAHT, OpenSite and Accipiter, before institutional investors had committed any hard-circled capital. The fund’s institutional investors, BancBoston Ventures, SG Capital Partners, The CIT Group, Duke University and Royal Insurance, together contributed $27 million.