We started looking for investors that had been investing in at least 4 European startups over the past 2 years, hoping that this would already narrow down the list. This tends to confirm that Berlin and London are definitely in fashion with US firms and that Greycroft and Valar (probably not that known in Europe) might be the most active US VCs in Europe those days, together with Benchmark Capital and Insight Venture Partners. But 13 of those rounds were follow-on investments (and not 1st time investments).įour of those follow-on rounds were quite large and visible and respectively involved Valar Ventures (Number 26 + Lystable) and Greycroft (Performance Horizon + Azimo). It’s worth noting that so far this year, those 10 funds were actually involved in 27 rounds of financing for European startups. Same for Belgium-born Showpad that raised one of the most impressive round of the year from Insight Venture Partners but does not appear here). Paris had 1 deal and no Scandinavian startup received funding from any of the 10 most active US venture firms (it’s worth noting though that Scandinavian companies such as Tradeshift move their headquarters to the US very quickly and then don’t appear here. Berlin is currently their favorite city (5 deals). More than half (8) of the 14 startups newly financed by those 10 firms in 2016 are German companies.The smallest round was for Union Square Ventures (Jobbatical, Estonia, $2m). The biggest round was for Valar Ventures (Kreditech, Germany, $103m).The average size of the round in which they participated was $21m.In the first 9 months of 2016, t hose 10 firms have invested into a total of 14 new European Software / Internet startups.You can visit 7 of those firms with a single trip to New York City (only Route 66, Benchmark and Sequoia don’t have an office there).The full methodology explaining how we got to that short list is explained below (for those who are interested and/or those who would like to see a few more names of US investors). If you are the founder of an Internet / Software startup headquartered in Europe and you would like to raise money from a US VC, you should reach out to those 10 firms. So is it really happening now? Are US funds finally REALLY getting interested in Europe? And more importantly, which ones are the most active?Īs many European founders dream of attracting a US VC and some of our portfolio companies at Idinvest will try to do so very soon, we thought it would be interesting to answer that question.Īnd without further due, here is the answer! In 2015, Benchmark had invested into 8 new companies (+ 16 follow-on investments), none of which was headquartered in Europe. Well, here is the surprising answer: it’s already the 3rd time this year.īefore backing Zenly, Benchmark had already invested into Citymapper (London, $40m Series B) and Contentful (Berlin, $13m Series B) in 2016.ģ out of their 9 deals of 2016 were done in Europe. This is what Zenly is expecting to get from Benchmark.īut let’s be honest: raising a round like this makes you feel pretty unique as well.Īfter all, how often does Benchmark Capital actually invest in Europe, right? They have deep sector expertise and their personal networks and brands can offer access to a pool of talents, customers and business partners, that is often only available on the other side of the Atlantic. Those venture capitalists are bold, they have significant financial firepower and they don’t let founders discount their dreams as they have already been exposed to building category leaders such as Facebook and Salesforce. Top US venture capital firms have obviously some of the most experienced and successful investment professionals.
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