South Korea’s Crescendo Equity Partners, a private equity firm sponsored by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, is creating a 200 billion won ($176.8 million) fund to expand investment in Korean ventures. The fund will be raised in a blind pool or investment with no stated goal for the second time in the country following its first blind fund worth 75 billion won.

According to financial industry sources on Sunday, Crescendo Equity Partners is raising money to create its second blind pool fund in Korea by end of this year. It plans to raise 200 billion won in the first round and increase the volume afterwards through additional rounds of fund raising event. It is reported that the fund manager already has received investment worth 100 billion including 75 billion won from the state-run Korea Growth Investment Corp.

Crescendo Equity Partners was established in 2012 with Thiel’s backing. The private equity firm specializes in buyouts and growth capital investments in Korea. It recently invested 43 billion won in environmentally-friendly plastic maker Dongah Chemical Co. and another 40 billion won in Korea’s leading office software developer Hancom Inc.

The private fund manager previously created its first blind fund worth 74 billion won in Korea. It has used up nearly 90 percent to invest in local firms, and its internal rate of return or the yield rate on fixed amount of capital investment has reached 39 percent.

Local communication equipment supplier Seojin System Co. in which the fund manager invested 20 billion won a couple of years ago has returned profits doubling the initial investment after successful making a debut on the secondary Kosdaq bourse. Also, Sangshin Electronics Co., electronics parts maker in which the fund manager invested 10 billion won in December 2015 recently passed the preliminary Kosdaq IPO review that it is expected to deliver another high return to Crescendo Equity Partners.

Peter Thiel, chairman of Palantir Technologies, co-founded PayPal, the global online payment service, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Thiel is a big name in Silicon Valley, having invested, either privately or through institutions, in a number of promising start-ups including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Airbnb.

By Kang Doo-soon

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