2001-04-02 00:03 (New York); --Randy Whitestone in the New York newsroom (212) 940-1805 or at rwhitestone@bloomberg.net

San Francisco, April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Walden International, a venture backer of fledgling technology and health-care firms, said it raised $1 billion in new funds from 60 institutions, including pension funds, endowments and investment banks.

The San Francisco-based firm started fund-raising in October and completed its investor roadshow in mid-November; the new fund’s completion was delayed until now so it could take in money from the Common Fund, which invests money for more than 1,000 schools and was closing a new fund of its own, said Lip-Bu Tan, executive chairman and founder of 15-year-old Walden.

"The market was going south and investors were still supporting us," Tan said in an interview. "Clearly you can see the nervousness from investors, and they ask a lot more questions, but they still came in and we feel grateful and fortunate."

Pacven Walden Ventures V LP will make $15 million to $18 million investments in about 50 Asian and U.S. communications, software, hardware and life sciences companies, said Tan. The new capital, including two smaller affiliated funds, is triple the $325 million Walden raised in 1997-98.

The Malaysia-born Tan, 41, a nuclear engineer by training, founded the international arm of Walden Group, a San Francisco venture firm focused on media startups, in 1984.

Walden’s portfolio companies include Centillium Communications Inc., iAsiaWorks Inc., Accelerated Networks Inc., EndWave Corp., MediaRing.com Ltd., SINA.com, Sonoma Systems, WebEx Communications Inc., Tsqware Inc. and Transmeta Corp.

Investors in the new fund include AOL Time Warner Ventures, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HarbourVest Partners, Harvard Management Co., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NIB Capital Private Equity, and Verizon Communications. About 28 percent of the new fund came from Asian and European investors, up from 6 percent in the previous fund.

Pacven V will be managed by 15 partners and 23 other investment professionals in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Japan, China and Hong Kong. The firm now has more than $2 billion under management.

--Randy Whitestone in the New York newsroom (212) 940-1805 or at rwhitestone@bloomberg.net/jk