Balderton Capital, which was recently named the most active Series A investor in Europe*, is launching a new $400m fund to continue to support outstanding European founders at this critical stage in a startup’s journey.
The fund is launched against a backdrop of unprecedented momentum within the European tech ecosystem. The number of Series A rounds in Europe per year has quadrupled since 2012, with the total amount of VC funding flowing into European startups hitting record highs last year – rising from €11.5bn in 2014 to €24.6bn in 2018*.
Bernard Liautaud, Managing Partner at Balderton, said:
“We believe Europe has the potential to build the next generation of technology giants, and we are focused on helping brilliant founders fulfil that ambition. We are seeing more and more exceptional founders raising Series A in Europe. With today’s new fund we want to build on that momentum.”
“We know from our firm’s 20 years of European investment experience that Series A is a critical point in a startup’s journey — it’s a magical moment when they are reaching product-market fit, are poised to scale and have to make decisions that can affect their growth trajectory for years to come. Our whole team is dedicated to helping our founders tackle those decisions as they embark on their journey.”
The new fund will be managed by an investment team of 15 working as a single team across Europe. Balderton now has permanent staff members based in both Paris and Berlin to help build even closer relationships with entrepreneurs, seed funds and accelerators and support portfolio companies on the ground.
Balderton will be looking to invest in leading-edge technologies, as well as strong brands with demonstrable momentum.
Balderton’s current portfolio includes Healx, which uses AI to accelerate treatments for rare diseases; e-commerce platform, The Hut Group, which has over 100 in-house health, beauty, fitness and lifestyle brands; Infarm, one of the world’s most advanced urban farming platforms; Revolut, a digital bank focusing on global spending and transfers, and SOPHiA Genetics, which uses AI to generate clinical and genomic insights for health professionals.
Since the beginning of 2018, Balderton’s portfolio has attracted over $2bn in follow-on funding and now employs more than 18,000 people in over 50 countries around the world.
Balderton’s Build platform provides talent, marketing, finance and legal services to support companies as they scale. In addition to Build’s in-house team, the platform connects founders and their teams to an active community of peers. The firm’s unique equal partnership model means every founder is fully supported by the collective expertise of the partnership.
In the spirit of the firm’s belief in engineering serendipity, founding teams gain access to the global industry leaders of the Balderton Executive Council; the CEO Collective network and offsite; and functional team events, meet-ups and workshops hosted at the firm’s Kings Cross headquarters and across Europe.
Since the beginning of 2018, Balderton’s team has connected with over 7,500 European founders and invested in 26 new companies. Today it has active investments in more than 90 companies, founded across 15 European countries. This is the firm’s seventh early-stage fund since its formation in 2000, bringing the total funds to over $3bn.
