The lines between venture capital and private equity groups are generally pretty clear.  Afterall, the needs and resources demanded by new companies are distinctly different than those required by more established or mature businesses.  Given the differences, you don’t typically confuse a pe firm for a vc group, and vice versa.  However, despite the general venture capital private equity divide, there is a small but distinct set of firms engaged in investing across company stages.

Not sure what you’d call these firms, other than some sort of hybrid investor, although investment firm Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) uses the firm name to spell it out for potential prospects.

Other hybrid investors such as Battery Ventures keep things simple for interested parties by breaking out portfolio holdings based on investment stage.  Battery Ventures lumps investments into one of three categories, including “Seed/Early”, “Expansion”, and “Private Equity”.  Battery is somewhat unique, (even amongst hybrids) as it targets opportunities across the entire spectrum of company stages (literally), willing to commit as little as a few hundred thousand for seed opportunities on the one side, to considering distressed situations on the other.

Hybrid firm Summit Partners doesn’t break out its portfolio companies as cleanly as Battery, however Summit does separate its varying investment products and breadth of range, willing to commit as “little as $5 million to more than $800 million of combined equity and debt per company”.  Summit Partners is somewhat unique in that in addition to providing venture capital and private equity funding, the firm also can commit junior capital.

Despite all the different hybrid strategies, one similarity amongst hybrid investors is that most tend to be specialist firms, with an unsurprising emphasis on technology.

So while the venture capital and private equity worlds both remain pretty crowded without a whole lot of differentiation amongst each, firms that are able to bridge the gap without a seeming preference for either, at least offer a perspective few others can match.