Mangrove Capital Partners, an early-stage VC firm which has invested in UK tech startups including Divido, has raised $170m to continue backing firms across Europe and Israel.
The “Mangrove V Fund”, as the investment vehicle is known, attracted support from 90% of the firm’s existing investors.
According to a statement, the firm decided to raise a relatively small fund in order to maximise the performance of its investments.
Mangrove’s high profile deals include Skype – a deal which, according to the firm, saw it invest $2m and resulted in a $200m gain – and Israel-based Wix.com.
“Our early success with Skype created a culture of risk-taking in the firm and gave us the confidence we need to convince entrepreneurs that they can conquer the world. This proved instrumental in encouraging the Wix.com founders to go for an IPO rather than selling early and we are now the largest shareholder in a $3.5bn public company as a result,” said Mark Tluszcz, co-founder and CEO at Mangrove Capital Partners
“We are absolutely delighted with the returns we’ve generated for our investors and we don’t want to change a recipe that works very well for us. We are also enormously excited by our pipeline – we have at least a dozen gems in the portfolio.”
Portfolio companies include Echobox – which raised $3.4m in a round led by Mangrove last year – and Wallapop.
Mangrove, based in Luxembourg, has made more than 130 investments in the past 17 years.
It now has more than $1bn under management and employs a team of 12 in offices including Berlin and Tel Aviv.
“We like to take big bets very early and support our best portfolio companies through multiple rounds of financing to build material stakes. We prefer to invest in unproven or unusual technologies rather than chase the latest fad,” Tluszcz concluded.