Longstanding seed investor based in New York, Contour Venture Partners, is making headway with its latest flagship fund after adjusting its target.
The firm secured $42 million from 64 investors for Contour Venture Partners Fund V, as per an SEC filing dated May 17. The New York-based venture capital firm aims to raise $70 million for its fifth flagship fund, having commenced fundraising in May last year.
Contour Venture Partners could not be reached for a statement.
Initially, the firm sought to raise $90 million, as indicated by an SEC filing from May 2023. Recent years have posed challenges for venture funds raising new capital. Over the past year, VCs such as DCVC, Tiger Global, and Founders Fund have had to lower their fundraising targets. According to PitchBook data, venture fundraising saw a more than 50% decline last year compared to 2022’s record-setting figures.
Contour typically invests amounts ranging from $500,000 to $1.5 million and often leads rounds in seed and early-stage companies. The firm focuses on sectors such as SaaS, digital media, and financial services, with a preference for companies located in New York or the Northeast.
While Contour may not have the vast resources like some seed firms, it has a solid track record of investing in successful companies.
The firm was among the first investors in the cloud analytics platform Datadog in 2011, which went public in 2019 with a valuation of $7.8 billion. Another notable investment was in the lending-focused financial platform OnDeck in 2006, which had a challenging recent history but went public in 2014 with a $1.3 billion valuation.
Contour’s current portfolio includes product intelligence platform Pendo, which has raised over $460 million in venture funding and was last valued at $2.6 billion. The firm also invested in Movable Ink, a data startup that has raised nearly $100 million and was last valued at $1.3 billion.
Founded nearly 20 years ago, Contour has raised over $370 million since its inception in 2005 across four flagship funds and three opportunity funds. The firm continues to be led by its founding partners, Matt Gorin and Bob Greene.
