Canaan Partners Raises $675 Mn for its Tenth Fund

Canaan Partners, a multi-billion dollar venture capital firm, has raised $675 Mn for its tenth fund Canaan X. Canaan Partners’ tenth fund brings the total capital under management to over $4.2 Bn.

Canaan has recently exited from startups in ecommerce, big data, cloud-based software, biopharmaceuticals and medical devices such as Ebates (acquired by Rakuten for $1 billion), Labrys Biologics (acquired by Teva Pharmaceutical for up to $825 million), Civitas Therapeutics (pending acquisition by Acorda Therapeutics for $525 million), Dermira ($125 million IPO), Durata Therapeutics (pending acquisition by Actavis for up to $800M), Skybox Imaging (acquired by Google for $500 million), Metacloud (acquired by Cisco) and Israel-based PrimeSense (acquired by Apple).

“Our recent exits and portfolio reflect the exceptional entrepreneurs we back,” said Wende Hutton, general partner. “We are especially proud of Canaan’s success in funding female entrepreneurs, and immigrant entrepreneurs who have co-founded over 20 percent of our portfolio companies. Regarding our success with women, we have six female investment professionals at Canaan; 12 of our portfolio companies have women CEOs; and 22 of our portfolio companies were co-founded by women. This is a much higher share than in the VC industry as a whole, where only 7 percent of investments go to female entrepreneurs.”

Canaan Partners will focus on startups in fintech, travel, big data, cloud, enterprise, SaaS, and consumer internet.  Going forward, it will continue to invest in biopharmaceutical, medtech and Healthcare IT companies.

Canaan Partners India

Canaan Partners had entered Indian market in 2006 and has invested nearly $200 Mn in companies like BharatMatrimony.com, Cartrade.com, Naaptol, iYogi etc. Recently Alok Mittal, Managing Director of Canaan India has quit the VC fund.

As per our sources, Rahul Khanna MD at Canaan India was trying to raise an India specific fund as Canaan Partners might not allocate funds for India from its 10th global fund. However, its not clear as of now.

Last month, ET had reported that Rahul Khanna, managing director of Canaan Partners, is also moving away from the fund to launch Trifecta Capital Partners, INR.300 Cr. venture debt fund in partnership with Nilesh Kothari, a former mergers and acquisitions (M&As) head of Accenture Plc in India.

In an earlier interaction with Inc42, both Rahul and Alok had clearly stated that Canaan India will not be making an more fresh investments, though they will continue supporting Canaan’s current portfolio companies. Both are currently on boards of BharatMatrimony (Matrimony.com), IndiaProperty, iYogi, mCarbon, UnitedLex, CarTrade and Happiest Minds.

Operating since 30 years, Canaan has made more than 160 exits to date, Canaan has funded some of the world’s most innovative companies in both technology and healthcare.