Firstminute Capital, co-founded by tech industry veteran Brent Hoberman and Spencer Crawley, has raised an additional $25m (£19m) to invest in early stage European technology startups.
The fund, which has drawn support from investors including Atomico and some 28 founders of tech unicorns, has so far raised $85m (£63.8m). New backers include Chinese investment firm Tencent and Frederic Mazella, the co-founder of BlaBlaCar.
Firstminute Capital will seek to invest between $250,000 and $750,000 per round and will look to focus on firms operating in the HealthTech, robotics, FinTech and AI sectors.
Speaking about the raise, Hoberman, the executive chairman and co-founder of technology startup accelerator Founders Factory, said he believed that emerging European tech startups would continue to excite and build on the momentum that has seen 47 unicorns emerge in the continent throughout the past decade.
“We hope to help the next generation of top entrepreneurs, both with our reach and by giving them credibility and support. We will invest not just in the UK, but across Europe. We aimed to raise $60m for our first fund, and are happy to have achieved that and closed oversubscribed at $85m, which we see as a strong signal for European technology. We believe the fund represents an unparalleled wealth of expertise to deliver on this promise,” he added.
Hoberman, who founded TravelTech firm Lastminute.com alongside Martha Lane Fox during the dotcom boom, has a long-track record of investing in technology firms such as Made.com.
Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, also partner and CEO at Atomico, commented: “Brent is a pioneer of technology entrepreneurship in Europe. For two decades he has done more than most to find, support and encourage Europe’s best founders. That’s why we were so pleased he became one of our Entrepreneur Partners last year and it’s why, when Brent told us about Firstminute, we wanted to be his first investor.
“We share a firm belief in the future of Europe’s technology ecosystem so we’re excited to be part of this new fund as it backs Europe’s most promising early stage founders.”
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