Chart Venture Partners
Chart Venture Partners Gathers $80M, Looks For $120M Close
VentureWire Professional 04/27/2006
Erica R. Davis
Chart Venture Partners scooped up $80 million for its first fund in March and expects a final close with a maximum of $120 million in the fall, General Partner Matthew McCooe said.
New York-based Chart Venture Partners LP plans to spin out early-stage technology companies which originate in government and university laboratories, but develop products intended for both commercial and governmental markets, McCooe said. Geographically, the firm will focus its efforts on the Eastern seaboard, concentrating on the New York and Washington D.C. areas.
"We're talking to companies who've never had a thought of the DoD; we help open doors and re-strategize on how one would enter into that space," McCooe said.
Chart Venture Partners was co-founded by its three general partners. Christopher Brady is chairman of merchant banking firm Chart Group LP, a Chart Venture Partners limited partner. Timothy N. Teen is chief executive of non-profit InsiTech Inc., which transfers technology between government research labs and companies developing commercial applications. McCooe most recently managed Columbia University Science and Technology Venture's portfolio of spin out companies.
During McCooe's tenure at Columbia, eleven of Columbia's more than 50 portfolio companies went public or were acquired by publicly traded companies in the last 30 months, McCooe said. These included Aton Pharma Inc., which was acquired by Merck & Co. Inc. in 2004, and Smarts Inc., which was bought by EMC Corp. in 2005.
Chart Venture Partners plans to hire at least one more general partner and one principal to manage the fund, McCooe said.
Limited partners in the new fund consist of 40% institutional investors and 60% high net worth individuals, McCooe said. Chart Group owns between 2% and 5% of the company. The other unnamed limited partners include an American private equity investor, a Middle Eastern investment corporation and a Middle Eastern real estate holding company.
The venture firm will invest $5 million to $8 million in about 20 companies. Chart may co-invest on 75% of its deals, and will back technology companies in areas such as software, communications, optics, computer vision and lasers.
Through Teen's InsiTech, Chart Venture Partners has an exclusive licensing agreement with the U.S. Army's Armament Research Development and Engineering Center in Picatinny, N.J., which focuses on high-power microwaves, high-energy lasers and nanotechnology. InsiTech is a partner and advisor to Chart Venture Partners.
The firm may license technology through its relationships with Columbia University and the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
In early May, Chart Venture Partners plans to invest in McLean, Va.-based Revive Systems Inc., which raised a $2 million Series A from Novak Biddle Venture Partners earlier this month. Using technology originating from Columbia University, Revive Systems is developing network security software.
Within the next month, Chart Venture Partners says it may also invest in Westborough, Mass.-based RemoteReality Corp., which designs cameras, software and other equipment for physical security applications in the military, homeland security and asset protection markets.
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