8VC Aims To Raise $640M For Third Flagship Fund, Filings Show

On Thursday afternoon, San Francisco-based 8VC filed paperworkwith the SEC disclosing its intent to raise $640 million for its third flagship venture capital fund. 1

See 8VC’s portfolio companies.

If it is fully raised, this fund will match the size of the firm’s second fund, which was closed in April 2018. The firm’s first flagship venture capital fund was closed in March 2016, raising $300 million to invest mostly in early-stage deals.

The filing states that no capital has yet been closed for the new investment vehicle. Venture capital firms often file a Form D immediately prior to closing capital for new funds, even though most have secured “soft commits” from limited partners prior to making the first official close.

The firm is led by Joseph Lonsdale, a multi-time entrepreneur turned venture capital investor. Outside of his work with 8VC, Lonsdale is perhaps best known as a co-founder of controversial data analytics company Palantir. In addition to Palantir, he cofounded wealth management platform Addepar and government services automator OpenGov.

Lonsdale is the sole general partner listed on the filing.

8VC has retained the services of New York-based independent broker-dealers Artist Capital and ABG to assist with raising the fund.

As stated earlier, 8VC is an investor in Crunchbase. The firm was a participating investor in Crunchbase’s Series A round, which was closed in November 2015.

More recently, however, the firm has made bets across a number of sectors. Its most recent publicly disclosed deal is a participating investor in insurance technology startup Socotra’s $15.2 million Series B round. Other deals from 2020 include leading a venture round raised by health care software company SurgLogs and participating in the Series A of Seattle-based Legalpad, which helps immigrants apply for work visas at startup companies.

The firm has seen a number of exits out of its portfolio. These include freelancer-focused mobile banking app-maker Seed, oncology tech company Guardant Health and AI-powered drug discovery company RondinX, among others.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias