Investment firm raises $310 million

TrueBridge passes goal

The new Triangle investment firm TrueBridge Capital Partners, which set out to attract a quarter-billion dollars from investors, has breezed past its target to raise $310 million.

"It's an accomplishment that investors are placing that level of confidence in them," said John Taylor, director of research at the National Venture Capital Association.

Edwin Poston, a general partner in the new firm, said raising the money wasn't easy. "I think any time there is economic uncertainty, it makes it more difficult," he said.

Poston, former managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, co-founded TrueBridge last year along with Mel Williams, a former vice president at UNC Management Co., which manages the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's endowment.

Truebridge is running a "fund of funds" that invests mainly in venture capital funds, which in turn finance young, private companies with high growth potential. It also expects to invest in a few private equity funds focused on financing later-stage companies that are expanding rapidly.

The Triangle may not be a top-tier money center, but TrueBridge isn't the only local investment firm to take a fund-of-funds approach.

Chapel Hill's Morgan Creek Capital Management is involved in a joint venture that focuses on hedge funds. Parish Capital Advisors, another Chapel Hill firm, invests in venture capital and buyout funds.

Truebridge raised its first fund from institutional investors, such as pension funds and university endowments, and wealthy individuals.

It also raised money from more than 50 graduates of the Kauffman Fellows Program, an apprenticeship for budding venture capitalists. The connection is an outgrowth of its partnership with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Center for Venture Education, which runs the program.

TrueBridge has pledged a slice of its profit to the Kauffman program. Poston declined to say how much but called it not insignificant.

The ability to leverage those Kauffman Fellows connections to gain entry to the top-performing venture capital firms was a selling point TrueBridge stressed while raising money from investors, Poston said.

"That's huge," Taylor said. "The Kauffman Fellows program ... places its grads in some of the top VC firms across the country."

The challenge for a fund of funds is persuading elite venture capital funds to take their money. Top funds are so popular with investors that they often accept only a fraction of the money that investors are eager to hand over.

Poston said TrueBridge has already demonstrated it can invest in the top firms.

Although TrueBridge just announced its final closing on its fundraising, it has quietly had a series of interim closings that have enabled it to invest $195 million to date. Poston declined to identify the funds Truebridge has invested in.

TrueBridge, which has five employees, is operating out of temporary offices in Durham but plans to move into space it has leased in Chapel Hill next spring.