The venture capitalists based in London have launched a New early-stage fund amid an increase in the valuation of British and European companies.
Balderton Capital has raised a new venture capital fund worth $600 million to invest in early-stage businesses amid a rise in the value of British and European startups. According to Pitchbook’s data, the launch of the European-focused fund comes after an unprecedented year of investment in regional startups with more than $80 billion in the fund.
Balderton member Colin Hanna says that over 50% of the fund focusing on Europe will be used for investments that follow on from startups supported by the investment fund. The investors based in London had expanded beyond Series A and seed investing by launching the $600 million growing stage funds in June.
“We are witnessing at late stages that valuations are becoming high and very expensive. If you want to defend your ownership, which is what we would like to do in those firms that are outperforming, we must invest more money to protect our ownership,” Hanna says. Hanna is the Berlin-based partner of the company.
Balderton secured $400 million from its last stage-one venture fund in November of this year. The market for growth and early-stage investments has changed since then, thanks to significant Silicon Valley investors like Sequoia Capital opening offices in London and London and the rapid-fire deals making and aggressive valuations made by hedge funds Tiger Capital and other growth investors.
Team Balderton Capital in their London office.
Balderton was spun off by Balderton’s San Francisco’s Benchmark Capital in 2007, and in the past, it has raised $4.5 billion in ten funds, which support several of the U.K’s top startups such as Revolut Betfair and Nutmeg. Darktrace, Flywire, Sophia Genetics, and Truecaller were listed in a bumper year for the portfolio, while Etsy acquired fashion marketplace Depop.
“This fund is doubled on the work we’ve done for the past 21 years, but it’s also getting to the needs of the moment as for an extended period, Europe wasn’t here,” says Hanna. “So now we can help entrepreneurs scale their businesses from the beginning to Series A or B, C or beyond. This initial stage investment fund will be the lynchpin of this.”
