Four months after closing its largest fund to date, Kapor Capital wants more. The firm is under new leadership after co-founders Freada and Mitch Kapor stepped back from the outfit, which focuses on funding social impact ventures and founders of color. Now, led by Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri and Brian Dixon, Kapor Capital is hoping to raise a $50 million opportunity fund, according to an SEC filing.
The opportunity fund, if closed, would continue Kapor Capital’s new strategy of taking capital from outside investors. Up until last year, all of Kapor’s funds were directly from the founding partners; in September, though, the firm closed a $126 million Fund 3 backed by investors including Cambridge Associates, Align Impact, Ford Foundation, Bank of America, PayPal and Twilio.
At the time, Dixon told TechCrunch that turning to external investors helps the firm with access; Kapor is now writing checks between $250,000 and $3 million with a primary focus on participating in pre-seed and seed rounds. Onovakpuri said the larger fund would allow them to invest in more companies with bigger checks.
That said, with presumably a fresh chunk of capital to deploy, why would Kapor be eyeing an opportunity fund? It’s a trend-turned-standard among early-stage venture capital firms that want to get in on later rounds of their star portfolio companies. Last year, Khosla debuted an opportunity fund and last week, Cowboy raised its first of the kind as well.
Kapor Capital did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Natasha Mascarenhas