Gryphon Investors, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, announced that it held a first and final closing of Gryphon Mezzanine Partners, L.P. at its cap of $100 million of aggregate commitments, excluding the GP commitment. The Fund was oversubscribed and reached its cap primarily with commitments from existing LPs. This credit fund represents a new and complementary investment strategy for Gryphon, which has previously raised four institutional control private equity funds.

The Fund will participate exclusively on a minority basis in the mezzanine securities of recent and prospective financings of Gryphon 3.5 and Gryphon IV, led by leading third party institutional lenders. The Fund’s initial “seeded” portfolio investments include the 2017 financings of three Gryphon portfolio companies: Wind River Environmental, Orchid Underwriters, and Ob Hospitalist Group. The Fund will be managed by existing Gryphon professionals.

David Andrews, Founder and CEO, said, “Over the past few years, a number of our limited partners seeking current-yielding investments have asked us about opportunities to participate in the debt financings of Gryphon’s portfolio companies. This fund is designed primarily to satisfy that LP demand. We are pleased to have run an efficient ‘one and done’ fundraise that reached its cap after only a few months of focus, and we greatly appreciate the enthusiastic and timely support we received from our investors.”

For the past 20 consecutive quarters, Gryphon has placed on Preqin’s “Consistent Performers” quarterly North American buyout rankings for its flagship private equity strategy. Gryphon’s most recent private equity buyout fund, Gryphon IV, which closed in November 2016 at $1.1 billion, now includes seven portfolio company investments and is approximately 80% committed.