Menlo Park: California-based global venture capital firm Canaan Partners has closed $600 million fund as part of its Canaan XI Fund, bringing the total capital under its management to $3.5 billion. The new fund would enable the firm to continue to invest primarily in early-stage technology and healthcare companies.  Over three-quarters of the fund will be set aside for early-stage investments with the remainder earmarked for later-stage companies.  It will also continue its robust activity with seed investments as appropriate.  The firm had made 14 seed investments in its last fund.

According to Rahul Khanna, Managing Director, Canaan India, “With the new fund, Canaan Partners would continue its role as an active investor in technology. Its notable seed and early-stage investments include KABAM, Lending Club, Cardlytics and Zoosk. As part of the Canaan XI, our healthcare team would continue to invest in clinical assets to the pharma pipeline as well as the medical devices and healthcare infrastructure technologies that would revolutionize the practice of medicine in a cost-effective manner.”

Canaan XI is advised by Alok Mittal, and would see Brent Ahrens, John Balen, Stephen Bloch, MD, Wende Hutton, Maha Ibrahim, Deepak Kamra, Warran Lee, Guy Russo, and Izhar Shay donning the roles of General Partners.

According to Brent Ahrens, General Partner, Canaan Partners, the raising of Canaan XI is attributed to the quality of the team and the portfolio companies, as well as the recently realized exits.

Before considering an investment opportunity the firm has a set of guidelines, which includes the submission of a business plan following which it takes four to six weeks to decide whether to invest or not.

“We focus on investing in promising companies in the technology and healthcare sectors with the potential of becoming market leaders. We invest in Digital Media, Consumer Internet, Communications, Mobile, and Enterprise companies.  However, within these sectors there are several sub-sectors we find particularly promising for Canaan IX, including converged communications via IP; cloud computing and SaaS platforms; consumer Internet platforms that leverage web-based services and/or dis-intermediate traditional business models; and digital advertising solutions that increase ad reach and performance,” adds Khanna.

In India, the firm is particularly interested in investing in consumer Internet companies that serve the massive, emerging domestic market, as well as outsourced services companies that serve the global market. While in Israel, the firm is particularly interested in hardware, video, and devices companies that change the paradigm of connectivity between machines and people.

Founded in 1987, Canaan Partners has invested in more than 240 companies and has had more than 135 successful exits. Its famous investments include Happiest Minds, Zmanda, Acme Packet, CommerceOne, Zoosk, Saleslogix, naaptol, blip.tv, and many more.