Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s biggest venture capital investors, has raised $305m for its fifth European fund.
The fund has been raised to “seize growing opportunities in the European technology sector”, further showing the investment potential for companies after a positive first quarter of 2014.
Balderton have been behind breakthrough successes such as Betfair, Lovefilm, MySQL, NaturalMotion and Yoox and the funding brings the total value of the companies backed by Balderton to over $10 billion.
Strong start to 2014
The investment in Balderton rounded off a roaring quarter in tech.
Horizon Discovery’s successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange and Shazam’s announcement that it had raised $20m through a funding round are just two of the many stories demonstrating the prosperous environment.
borro, eCommera and Zopa also raised £67m, £25m and £17m respectively over the past three months. You can read about all about their success in the new issue of the Tech City News magazine.
It is a positive sign for Just Eat who are preparing the float on the London Stock Exchange. They are being valued at around £700 – £900 million, and hope the IPO will raise £100 million.
Investing in Europe
Balderton have recently invested in a series of European startups.
Recent investments include companies such as GoCardless, Lyst, Top10.com, and Vivino which are all based in Europe.
The fund was raised principally from existing limited partners but also included a new investor, the European Investment Fund.
Bernard Liautaud, General Partner at Balderton and founder of Business Objects, commented:
We’re seeing more companies than ever, with close to 10,000 businesses reaching out to us last year, and an increasing quality of entrepreneurs entering the technology sector.
We’re seeing more companies than ever, with close to 10,000 businesses reaching out to us last year, and an increasing quality of entrepreneurs entering the technology sector.