Endress+Hauser, a family-owned Switzerland-based industrial group, has acquired corporate venturing-backed SpectraSensors, a US-based maker of laser-based gas analytical instruments.
SpectraSensors had reportedly raised more than $26m, including a $6m series D round in May 2009 and $14m C round two years earlier from oil major Chevron’s corporate venturing unit and venture capital firms American River Ventures, Blueprint Ventures, Nomura Private Equity Investment and Nth Power. Blueprint said it was the largest shareholder in SpectraSensors and made a “phenomenal success” with the exit.
Blueprint raised $130m for its first fund in 2000 but went into run-off after failing to raise a subsequent vehicle and departure of the three managing directors – Bart Schachter, former head of chip maker National Semiconductors’ corporate venturing unit until just after its merger with peer Texas Instruments (TI) this year, George Hoyem, a partner at the US intelligence agencies’ investment group In-Q-Tel, and Jim Houston, head of the Portland Seed Fund.
With Schachter’s departure from TI, he has returned to Blueprint and been managing the fund’s remaining four active portfolio companies. In January this year he also raised $40m for a secondaries fund from institutional investors. The secondaries fund focuses on buying employee or ex-employee shares in private companies off-market rather than through platforms, such as SecondMarket.
Schachter said: “[Social network] Facebook popularised [the buying of employee shares pre-flotation]. But whereas people thought FAcebook’s IPO [initial public offering] would lead to a raft of IPOs so ending private deals who in their right minds would IPO in current conditions?”