The venture capital company Index Ventures, based in London, unveiled a €350 million ($442 million) fund to invest largely in start-up technology companies. The company expects to focus its new investments on European enterprises, but include start-ups in the U.S. and Israel as well.
Index Ventures plans to concentrate on seed and early-stage investments in software and Internet companies offering big data, cloud computing, commerce (especially fashion), financial services, games, mobile, and marketplaces. Its previous investments in these technologies include current industry leaders Last.fm, MySQL, and Skype.
The company has a history of investments in life sciences start-ups as well. In March, Index Ventures started a €150m fund in a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline and the venture capital affiliate of the Janssen division of Johnson & Johnson that invests exclusively in life science companies. A few life science companies in its portfolio — Addex Pharmaceuticals, ParAllele Bioscience, and PanGenetics — incubated in Index Ventures offices.
Index Ventures says that European start-ups offer many good investment opportunities, despite current macroeconomic headlines suggesting the opposite. The company says its portfolio includes 20 European private companies with combined 2011 revenues of €1.3 billion and year-over-year growth of about 75 percent. These businesses have also created more than 5,000 new jobs in the last 10 years.
Editor’s note: Original text corrected, 18 June 2012
Read more:
- Venture Funds in U.S., Europe Raise More Cash in Q1
- Venture Investment for European Companies Drops in 2011
Photo: MD4 Group/Flickr
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