Hoxton Ventures has held the final close of its sophomore European venture capital fund as it looks to find and invest into unicorns.
The size of the vehicle was not revealed; however, AltAssets reported in February that Hoxton could be looking to raise $120m for the vehicle. The firm was initially targeting $100m.
Contributions to the vehicle came from investors in its maiden fund, as well as new British, Swiss and U.S. institutional investors. British Patient Capital was among the new limited partners.
Its investment strategy will be to back European companies which can scale globally into “large, category-defining” leaders in newly forming industries.
The firm leverages its partners’ connections to the US and most of its new investments will target the US market either by opening offices in the country or making a sales presence there.
Hoxton’s debut fund, which closed on $40m in 2013, has the highest ratio of unicorns to investments, according to Dealroom. Its unicorns include Darktrace, Babylon Health and Deliveroo.
Hoxton partner Hussein Kanji said, “We set up Hoxton to address a market gap at a time when few venture firms wanted to invest at the early stage in Europe. Success stories like Darktrace and Deliveroo show that our region can produce large, global tech winners.”
“The availability of venture capital is still far lower per capita here than tech markets like Israel and Silicon Valley,” added co-founding partner Rob Kniaz. “We’re delighted to help fill this funding gap and deliver top-tier venture returns for our investors.”
The new fund has been investing since early 2019 and has already been used to make 20 investments. Deals have been made into enzyme business FabricNano, homewares marketplace Fy!, cloud kitchen business Kbox Global, artificial intelligence radiology startup Kheiron Medical and online education company Preply.
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