Tim Draper is setting his sights on Europe as DFJ Esprit officially rebrands as DraperEsprit along with other members of the global Draper Venture Network, formerly the DFJ Network.
Draper, the VC who has invested in hundreds of startups including Tesla, Baidu and Europe’s own Skype among others, will work closely with the team of 9 Esprit partners to find, back and scale the next wave of European unicorns.
He said: “Simon and the Draper Esprit team are one of the most successful VC teams in the Draper Venture Network, outside of the Valley, and the quality and scale of the companies coming out of Europe right now means it’s a very exciting time to be an investor in Europe.
“I’m looking forward to working closely with the team to back the world’s best entrepreneurs from across Europe.”
In recent months Draper Esprit portfolio companies Trustpilot, Lyst, Movidius, Sportpursuit and Horizon Discovery have raised a total of over $230m in new capital to further accelerate their growth and international expansion.
Trustpilot of Copenhagen is well recognised as the world’s leading source of trusted reviews for internet based businesses. Backed by many leading investors, Lyst is a leading fashion marketplace.
In hardware, Dublin based Movidius is one of the most exciting companies in the area of machine vision. In healthcare, Cambridge headquartered AIM listed Horizon Discovery is one of the world’s leaders in personalised medicine.
Draper Esprit will continue to operate as the exclusive Draper Venture Network partner for high growth companies originating in Western Europe.