Dawn Capital, one of Europe’s leading specialist B2B software investors, announced it has raised €660 million to invest in the next generation of global software leaders. The fundraising includes the €580 million for flagship fund Dawn V, one of the largest dedicated early-stage B2B software funds ever raised in Europe. Dawn V will back European software innovators at Series A and B stage with initial investments of €10 million to €40 million, and provide capital for follow-on rounds. The new capital also comprises an €80 million follow-on fund, Dawn Opportunities III: a later-stage fundraised to strengthen Dawn’s ability to invest in its sector winners from Series C stage onwards.
Together, the funds will enable the firm to continue to back European B2B software companies from Series A all the way to exit. Using Dawn V and Dawn Opportunities III, the firm will double down on its established strategy of backing world-class founders building category-defining software across the technology stack, from infrastructure to end-user applications. As with previous funds, Dawn’s team will focus on companies driving significant long-term value and seismic shifts for enterprise over the next decade and beyond.
The firm has already made three exciting investments from Dawn V. Dawn has backed the exceptional founding teams at the tax compliance platform, Fonoa, embedded insurance platform, Cover Genius, and the application modernisation platform, FlowX.AI. These startups exemplify the type of companies Dawn is looking to support: companies delivering strong traction with market-leading products and the ability to capture multi-$bn global market opportunities.
Haakon Overli, General Partner at Dawn Capital, said: “Over the last 18 months, we have all witnessed the challenging macro environment. We founded Dawn to support founders building global B2B software leaders from Europe, and this ethos has not changed. We firmly believe it is a great point in the cycle to be investing and see the opportunity in Europe only increasing. Our two decades of experience have shown us that companies forged in challenging times are forced to deliver even more value, with compelling propositions and deep-rooted resilience. Our new funds will enable us to remain laser-focused on opportunities, with the capital to meaningfully support founders from Series A to exit. We can’t wait to see where our future entrepreneurs take us with our new funds and greatly appreciate the support of all our investors, team and founders.”
Founded in 2007, Dawn was acknowledged as Europe’s top-performing venture capital fund manager by Preqin in 2023, and all the firm’s funds continually rank in the top quartile for venture capital performance globally.
Since it was launched, Dawn has raised over $2 billion from leading global investors to invest in best-of-breed European B2B software. The firm has invested in more than 80 category-leading companies founded across 16 European countries, including multi-billion leaders Mimecast (formerly NASDAQ-listed, taken private by Permira in a $5.8 billion transaction), iZettle (sold to PayPal for $2.2 billion cash), Tink (purchased by Visa for $2.0 billion), LeanIX (recently acquired by SAP), and currently established unicorns Collibra, Dataiku and Quantexa.
The entirety of Dawn’s 35-person, multilingual and multi-faceted team is dedicated to the success of every portfolio company. The team offers wide-ranging expertise, connection to an extensive network of industry leaders and a hands-on approach to helping companies successfully scale across Europe, the US and globally.
