IPO filed for secondary market investment fund

* Tech executives launch fund targeting secondary markets

* Apple director Campbell, HP executive Bradley advises

By Nadia Damouni

NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A group of Silicon Valley executives plan to launch the first ever closed-end mutual fund to offer retail investors access to primary and secondary market trading of fast-growing private companies.

The launch of NeXt BDC Capital Corp fund, disclosed in a regulatory filing on Jan. 7 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, comes as interest in hot privately held Internet companies such as Facebook have soared on online trading platforms such as SecondMarket Inc.

Interest in private Internet companies reached a milestone last week after Goldman Sachs' $450 million investment in Facebook at a $50 billion valuation and a commitment to raise another $1.5 billion drew the attention of the SEC. [ID:nN04246696]

NeXt BDC is structured as a closed-end fund, which is a publicly traded investment company that raises a fixed amount of capital through an initial public offering (IPO). The fund is then structured, listed and traded like a stock on a stock exchange. It is seeking to raise $50 million.

The fund is headed by Michael Moe, co-founder and former chairman and chief executive officer of ThinkEquity Partners, an investment bank that focuses on venture capital.

NeXt BDC will be managed by NeXt Asset Management, whose advisory board includes technology heavy hitters such as William Campbell, an Apple Inc (AAPL.O) board member and chairman to the board of Intuit, and Todd Bradley, executive vice president of Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N).

The fund's managers intend to purchase minority equity investments in privately held companies that trade on online secondary markets such as Sharespost and SecondMarket, where shares of Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn have briskly traded.

The Woodside, California-based company has applied to have its common stock approved for listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol "NEXT."

(Reporting by Nadia Damouni; Editing by Kenneth Li and Richard Chang)