The venture capital market has been increasingly bifurcating in recent years; the largest VC funds are growing their assets, and it’s become challenging to raise funds for those that aren’t the big brand names.
There was a general slump in VC fundraising this year: European VCs raised around €20bn across 161 vehicles according to PitchBook data — the lowest count in a decade. Sifted also tracked fewer first-time funds this year than we did in 2023 and 2022.
Some investors were able to secure big cheques from LPs. For one, Balderton Capital raised the largest-ever combined early-stage and growth fundraise focused on European startups earlier this year, with $1.3bn. It’s prompted renewed debates about the economics and strategy around fund sizing, but no matter where you stand on the issue, it’s clear LPs still have faith in Europe despite the rocky last couple of years.
Sifted took a look at the 10 largest VC fundraises this year.
1) Index Ventures — $2.3bn
Index raised $1.5bn for its 12th growth fund and $800m for its seventh venture fund. The firm, which has offices in London, Jersey and Geneva as well as San Francisco and New York, said the fresh funding will focus largely on AI. Index was an early backer of UK neobank Revolut, as well as French OpenAI challenger Mistral.
The fresh funds still don’t stack up to the $2.9bn it raised at the peak of the VC fundraising frenzy in 2021, and, as Sifted has reported, Index has been slowing its deployment in recent years.
2) Forbion — €2.1bn
The somewhat under-the-radar firm, with offices in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, focuses largely on biotech and life sciences investments. It was originally a venture arm of Dutch bank ABN AMRO, before spinning out as an independent firm in 2006. In 2024, Forbion raised €1.2bn for its third growth fund and €890m for its seventh venture fund — which brings the firm’s total assets under management to €5bn. Both funds will invest in about 15 companies a piece, according to the firm.
3) Balderton Capital — $1.3bn
The London-based firm raised the largest-ever pool of funds dedicated to investing in only European startups (often big investors include the US in their purview); it raised a $615m early-stage fund and a $685m growth fund. Among its LPs in the funds are British Patient Capital and a US pension fund.
The UK firm has invested in hundreds of companies in Europe since its launch in 2000, including cybersecurity company Darktrace and social shopping platform Depop — both of which the firm exited — as well as photo editing app Photoroom, business payments company GoCardless and buzzy UK autonomous vehicle startup Wayve. The firm is sector-agnostic.
4) Atomico — $1.24bn
The firm, founded by Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström in 2006, raised a hefty pair of funds in 2024: $754m for its sixth growth fund and $485m for sixth venture fund. Its growth fund is focused on Series B to pre-IPO tickets, while its early-stage fund will invest in Series A as well as some opportunistic seed companies.
Atomico is known for its big bets on the likes of Swedish buy now, pay later giant Klarna, Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s healthtech startup Neko Health and German AI language tool DeepL. The firm’s previous fundraise was an $820m fund in 2020.
5) Accel — $650m
The American VC, which has had a presence in London since 2000, raised a $650m pot of capital to invest in European and Israeli startups — its eighth such Europe-focused fund. The firm plans to invest in 30 companies writing cheques between $1m-$20m at the seed and Series A stages. It’s a sector-agnostic fund.
Accel has backed a host of big European companies over the years, including French healthcare software platform Doctolib, Romanian enterprise software startup-turned-public company UiPath and UK payment startup GoCardless.
6) Innovation Industries — €600m
The Netherlands-based deeptech-focused firm raised €500m for its third namesake fund and another €100m for its strategic partners fund. Innovation Industries says it invests cheques starting at €2m and can invest up to €50m in companies across multiple funding rounds in areas like robotics, photonics and AI. Its LPs include Invest-NL, the European Investment Fund and KfW Capital.
Among the firm’s notable bets is Dutch edge computing startup Axelera AI.
7) Creandum — €500m
Like Atomico, Creandum boasts big portfolio company names like Klarna, Depop and French AI startup H — but is perhaps best known for its early bet on Spotify. The firm, which has offices in Stockholm, Berlin, London and San Francisco, raised €500m for its seventh fund in 2024 from 30 LPs, and will invest in about 35-40 seed and Series A companies over the next few years.
8) Plural — €400m
The London-based VC has had a busy year; the firm co-led the hotly-anticipated funding round of Franco-German spacetech The Exploration Company and has invested in the likes of nuclear fusion company Proxima Fusion. Plural announced its second fund, of €400m less than two years after it raised its first.
9) 20VC — $400m
Podcaster-turned-VC Harry Stebbings’s firm 20VC raised $400m for its third fund. The new capital is split between $125m for seed cheques and $275m for Series A companies; ticket sizes will be $500k-25m split between European and US startups.
London-based 20VC is backed by tech entrepreneurs as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Horsley Bridge and RIT Capital Partners. The firm has invested in startups like social app BeReal, AI model startup Poolside and equity management platform Ledgy.
10) Speedinvest — €350m
The Austrian VC announced its fourth fund in early 2024, raising €350m to invest in early-stage startups in areas like deeptech, health and SaaS. The firm has written cheques to the likes of German autonomous trucking startup Fernride, Ledgy and crypto broker Bitpanda.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/10-largest-europe-vc-funds-2024/
