Lead Edge Capital’s Exits, Assets Step Up

By Alexander Davis

Mitchell Green’s New York growth-stage firm closes on $520 million for its fourth fund.

Liquidity events may be sluggish lately for many venture firms, but Lead Edge Capital has had been on an enviable run of exits for a shop of its size.

This year alone, the New York firm founded by Mitchell Green saw two of its portfolio companies, Spotify and Delivery Hero, taken public. Along the way three others were acquired—Moat, ClearScore and most recently Duo Security, which was acquired by Cisco Systems for $2.35 billion.

Limited partners have responded to that record by pooling $520 million into Lead Edge’s fourth fund, significantly increasing funds under management to more than $1.5 billion and stepping up from the $290 million it raised for its third fund in 2015.

The firm’s other investments include Alibaba, Bird, Toast and Mindbody.

Mr. Green, 37, said the new fund’s strategy will be unchanged from its previous vehicles, with the core focused on growth-equity rounds, mixed with some early-stage and publicly-traded stock investments.

Lead Edge also emphasizes that its limited partner base, rather than relying on institutions, is made up primarily of about 250 prominent executives and other wealthy individuals. Many of them are put to work helping portfolio companies as advisers or board members, Mr. Green said.

The firm said on Thursday that one of its investors, former NetSuite Chief Financial Officer Ron Gill, has been named an operating partner in the firm. Mr. Gill is also a board member at HubSpot and Duo Security.