Kleiner Perkins Spinout Fund G2VP Raises $298 Million For Oversubscribed Cleantech Fund

Update: After the time of publication, G2VP informed Crunchbase News that the fund has not yet held its final closing, and, accordingly, we’ve amended language in this article to reflect that.

It’s been a little while since the green technology sector has had a new big fund enter the game. That’s changing.

According to SEC filings posted this afternoon, G2VP is raising its first fund, which is straightforwardly called “G2VP I, LLC.” If that doesn’t ring a bell, it should, because G2VP is the reincarnation of Kleiner Perkins‘s series of Green Growth (hence “G2”) funds.

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The process of spinning G2VP out from the storied Silicon Valley venture firm started in early 2017, according to a Wall Street Journal article from the time. Public-facing signals that the Green Growth team was raising a new fund emerged with the first regulatory filing for the fund – posted exactly one year ago today on April 24, 2017 – which cited a total offering amount of $275 million.

364 days after the first LP check was signed, G2VP’s fund has raised $298.15, an oversubscription of 17.5 percent from initial targets.

The general partners listed on G2VP’s fund are:

• Daniel Oros, a former member of the Green Growth Fund at Kleiner Perkins. Before KPCB, he was a vice president of Goldman Sach’s Special Situations Group.
• Benjamin Kortlang, a former partner in KPCB’s Green Growth Fund. He was also a vice president at Goldman Sachs.
• David Mount, another former partner in the Green Growth Fund. He was previously with Bain Capital.
• Brook Porter, a former partner of the Green Growth Fund who prior to joining the world of venture investing was the cofounder of Primafuel and R&D manager at Intelligent Energy.

And to be clear, G2VP appears to be a de novo entity, separate and apart from Kleiner Perkins.

This being said, a person familiar with Kleiner Perkins’s history said they “wouldn’t be surprised” if KPCB chairman John Doerr was “somehow involved” in encouraging G2VP’s team to proceed with the fund.

They added that Kleiner Perkins’ cleantech investment funds performed roughly in line with the other, more traditional tech-focused venture funds under the firm’s aegis.

They suggested that Kleiner Perkins encouraged the spinout because of some notable and public failures in its cleantech portfolio, which tarnished the firm’s reputation in the cleantech industry, despite its otherwise strong performance in the sector.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias