European VC giant Atomico has agreed to sell part of its fund of funds portfolio, multiple sources have told Sifted.
US private equity company Kline Hill Partners (KHP) is acquiring Atomico’s LP stakes in VC funds including Seedcamp, Visionaries Club, Puzzle Ventures, Common Magic and Tiny VC, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Sifted understands that the VC fund managers must still agree to KHP’s purchase of Atomico’s LP stake and some may choose to instead find an alternative buyer, such as one of their other existing LPs.
Atomico — which primarily invests in startups at Series A and above — has also been investing into early-stage VCs since 2017. In 2023, Anu Adebajo joined the firm from public LP British Patient Capital to lead its fund of funds strategy — but left a year later. Sifted understands that the portfolio funds up for sale include those Atomico backed between 2022 and 2023.
Atomico is also an LP in early-stage diverse founder-focused investors Ada Ventures, Cornerstone VC and Unconventional Ventures, climate tech VC Pale Blue Dot and seed fund Firstminute Capital, among others, according to PitchBook.
Sifted has contacted Atomico and KHP for comment.
From GP to LP
Atomico is far from the only European VC firm to also act as an LP.
Publicly-listed VC Molten Ventures is well-known for investing in startups and seed VC funds — several of which (including Zinc, Ada Ventures and Seedcamp) were also backed by Atomico. Meanwhile, UK-based Isomer Capital has a fund of funds strategy — but also makes coinvestments with the VCs in its portfolio.
In 2024, Atomico closed two new funds totalling $1.24bn to back startups in Europe, divided between a $485m early-stage fund focused on Series A companies and a $754m growth fund targeting Series B to pre-IPO.
The funds were less than the combined target of $1.35bn that appeared in previous US regulatory filings that were first reported by the Financial Times.
The firm has also seen plenty of changes to its partnership in recent years. Since closing its fifth fund, of $820m, in 2020 — Atomico’s lost six investment partners and gained seven.
The most recent to depart is Irina Haivas, who left in April. She was involved in the firm’s investments into body scanning startup Neko Health, breast cancer screening company Kheiron Medical and techbio platform Healx.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/atomico-fund-of-funds-portfolio-sale/
