Exclusive: ATV partners forming new spinout VC fund

The bi-coastal firm in 2011 dismissed all investment staff below the partner level, and then watched its top healthcare partners announce plans to begin raising an independent fund.

Now Fortune has learned that ATV partners Bob Hower and Bill Wiberg are talking with prospective investors about a $75 million fund that would focus on “capital-efficient” enterprise software companies. It’s called G20 Ventures, which refers to a group of around 20 entrepreneurs and other business execs who will both invest in the fund and help support its portfolio companies (kind of similar to the Data Collective model).

Hower joined ATV in 2002 to lead its East Coast IT investing practice, and has done such deals as Acme Packet (acquired by Oracle), Actifio, Apptegic, ChannelAdvisor (ECOM) and [x+1].

Wiberg has mostly focused on cleantech investments for ATV since joining in 2003, including deals for Aquion, GreatPoint Energy, Coskata, Oasys Water and Rive Technology. He previously was president of Lucent’s cellular and PCS wireless networks division.

Neither Wiberg nor Hower returned requests for comment. So I reached out to longtime ATV partner Steve Baloff to learn what this move meant about ATV’s future, but he only would say that the firm continues “to actively manage and oversee our current portfolio of companies.”

ATV last raised a fund in 2007, when it secured $305 million for its eighth vehicle. I’ve been unable to find return data for those funds, but a Pennsylvania public pension report discloses that ATV still had not returned principle investments from either its sixth or seventh funds as of Dec. 31, 2013. Wiberg and Hower have told prospective investors that they’ve achieved a combined gross IRR of 17.1% on all realized and unrealized investments (including 17.7% on all realized deals).

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