For 50 years now in investing in the web, Greylock Partners has funded the frontrunners in the IT and consumer internet categories such as LinkedIn, Dropbox, Facebook and Airbnb. Their partners in the filed believe that Greylock will repeat some of this previous success and continue to look for startups that will top the race in the internet world.

The firm's co-managing partner James Slaver said in an interview that it took less than three months for Greylock to raise its latest fund. Greylock was an early investor in Facebook and LinkedIn which now has $3.5 billion in assets under management.

Greylock can invest anytime from the seed round to the later stages. However, they generally get involved somewhere in between. Over 95% of investments in the 14th fund were series A or B and they expect to keep this approach for fund 15.

The raise in Greylock's fund shows how tough the venture capital industry has been this year despite the uncertainties that the rich valuations of many billion-dollar companies commonly called as unicorns would crash and pull down start-up investors.

According to a report from the research firm Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association, in the first three quarters of 2016, venture firms have raised $32.4 billion, making the year one of the strongest years in terms of fund-raising since 2000 where the venture industry had raised $101.4 billion.

Venture firms have raised six new funds of $1 billion or more so far this year, including Technology Crossover Ventures with a $2.5 billion fund and Andreessen Horowitz with a $1.6 billion fund. The six funds account for 26 percent of the total capital raised, according to PitchBook and the association.

"Lots of investors are thinking that certain trends have become more mature and that emerging areas are exciting but unclear," Mr. Slavet said.

With over 170 IPOs and 120 "profitable" acquisitions, Greylock has had numerous fruitful investments. Recent exits include Apptio, Pure Storage, Quip and TellApart.