The Motley Fool, Once Every Ten Years Whether You Need It or Not. 11/2/2009 Private Placement. Motley Fool, the multi-faceted financial services company from Alexandria, took a whopping $25M round from BIA Digital Partners and Patriot Capital. This is the first capital taken since a $30M round in 2001 at a huge valuation then of $506M. This round says that a portion will be used for “shareholder liquidity.” The Gardner brothers have been building this business for a long time and probably wanted some cash for themselves if they were going to allow in a new investment partner. BIA ($15M) is a new, supposedly mezzanine fund, as is Patriot Capital, but the press release clearly labeled this investment as equity. Most mezz funds have that flexibility to go preferred or equity.
