EdgeStone Capital Partners announced on Wednesday the initial closing of the EdgeStone Capital Venture Fund of Funds. The new fund has raised $200 million to invest primarily in Canadian venture capital funds and to co-invest with those funds directly in private companies.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has committed the capital to this new fund, renewing both its commitment to support venture capital in Canada and its support of EdgeStone Capital Partners.

“We are very pleased to have received this new mandate from the CPP Investment Board, one of our strategic partners,” says Samuel L. Duboc, president and managing gartner of EdgeStone Capital Partners. “The new fund will allow us to provide venture capital directly and indirectly to Canadian entrepreneurs and play an active role in ensuring their success. We intend to split the fund equally between investments in other leading venture capital funds and investing alongside them directly in early-stage companies.”

Claude Miron, who recently joined the company from the Business Development Bank of Canada where he was in charge of the Venture Capital Division, will oversee Edgestone’s fund of funds operations. Miron brings over 11 years of experience in venture capital funds and has extensive direct investing experience, including the sourcing of deals, structuring, due diligence, closing, monitoring and exiting. He is the president of Reseau Capital, Quebec’s venture capital association, and is a frequent speaker at various conferences in life sciences, venture capital and private equity.

The Venture Fund of Funds is a successor to the EdgeStone Capital Partners’ Fund of Funds, a $200 million, fully committed fund. The Venture Fund of Funds will typically make investments of between $5 and $10 million in funds targeting high growth industry verticals.

In related news today, EdgeStone Capital Partners also announced the second closing of its Equity Fund II which, combined with the Venture Fund of Funds, totals $480 million in new money to invest in the private capital markets.

http://www.newswire.ca/releases/June2002/19/c8130.html