HomeFundingSeedcamp closes €87.9 million seed fund to back Europe’s most exceptional founders

Seedcamp closes €87.9 million seed fund to back Europe’s most exceptional founders

You’ve most probably heard of Seedcamp if you’re the founder of a startup. As one of Europe’s leading pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firms, it’s spent the last 13+ years backing Europe’s most standout startups, including well-known fintech unicorns Transferwise and Revolut, cloud-based ‘decacorn’ UiPath, one of the fastest growing companies in history – event platform Hopin, as well as Pointy (acquired by Google), wefox, Ezra, viz.ai and Stupefix (acquired by GoPro).

Today the team announced the approx. €87.9 million (£78 million) first and final close of a heavily oversubscribed fifth fund to continue its Europe-wide mission.

Seedcamp V is the fund’s largest and most ambitious to date, and is backed by over 100 institutional investors (such as British Patient Capital, Legal & General, TIFF, LGT, Vintage IP, Isomer Capital, OMERS), some of the world’s most impactful venture capital funds (such as Index, Sequoia, Underscore VC, Northzone, Atomico and Draper Esprit), and alongside some of Europe’s top angel investors and Seedcamp founders (Taavet Hinrikus of TransferWise, Daniel Dines of UiPath, David Helgason of Nordic Makers/Unity and Shakil Khan of Spotify).

Also backed by 80 of Seedcamp’s founders, the power and reach of the Seedcamp Nation is now such that it could have raised the entirety of its first fund (€2.5 million in 2007) from the Seedcamp network alone. 

Exactly three years on from the close of Fund IV, at approximately €67.5 million (£60 million), Seedcamp is experienced in raising capital in the midst of challenging macro climates. From starting out in the middle of the economic crash, to raising Fund IV under the cloud of Brexit and the triggering of Article 50 and now Fund V fully remotely during COVID-19, the team understands first-hand the pains of the fundraising process, often experienced by the founders it backs.

In Fund V, Seedcamp will increase the amount of capital it invests in pre-seed and seed stage companies and will reserve capital for follow-on rounds up to Series B. Founders will continue to benefit from Seedcamp’s unparalleled global network and in-house platform of support, engineered to help companies get off the ground and to that all-important Series A.

The Seedcamp Partners commented, “At Seedcamp, we’ve always held firm in our belief that exceptional talent truly can come from anywhere – a belief we stand by both in how we’ve built out our own team and the founders we’ve gone on to back. When you take a chance and make the first investment into the Romanian founder who goes on to build Europe’s first cloud-based decacorn (UiPath) or the founder with health issues who creates an online events platform to drive connectivity for people who can’t be there in person – and it becomes one of the fastest growing companies in history (Hopin) – you know you’re onto something. 

Fundraising, both for companies and VCs, is never easy – you have to constantly be selling and fighting your corner as to why someone should take a chance on you. Raising Fund V felt like the first time we’ve not had to fight tooth and nail to prove our legitimacy, a strange reality to be faced with in the middle of what is a hugely uncertain time across the world. To be heavily oversubscribed and to reach a first and final close in the middle of a very challenging macro climate  gives us even further conviction that Seedcamp really is the place for Europe’s entrepreneurial talent to get their start. Now the hard work begins to find them.”

Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte is the previous Editor at EU-Startups.com. She spends her time scouting the next big story, managing our contributor team, and getting excited about social impact ventures. She has previously worked as a Communications Consultant for number of European Commission funded startup projects.
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