London-based DN Capital launches new €300M fund to boost post-pandemic global recovery

London-based VC firm DN Capital unveiled its latest $350M (€300M) fund called Fund V. This new fund will back the early-stage entrepreneurs across Europe, the UK and the US, who are creating businesses built on the pandemic-accelerated surge in digital adoption and developing technologies critical to the global recovery. 

Under the leadership of Nenad Marovac and Steve Schlenker – who head up a senior team with a combined 100 years-plus of investment experience – DN Capital’s team comes with a good record of partnering with some of Europe’s startups, the firm says in a statement.

The Initial Investments

In 2004, DN Capital was one of the firms that backed Shazam and also helped in guiding the London-born app through to Apple’s acquisition in 2018. DN Capital also led the Series A round in Auto1, which floated on the German Stock Exchange earlier this year at a valuation over $10B (nearly €8.46b) and over 150x its entry price per share. 

In 2011, DN Capital’s billion dollar exit was Endeca which was sold to Oracle for $1.1bn. In its current portfolio, US remittance business Remitly, digital staffing company Jobandtalent and the online education company GoStudent are amongst the latest unicorns and have recently closed billion-dollar financing rounds, the press release read.  

About Fund V and DN Capital

According to DN Capital, the Fund V, which was oversubscribed, will double the company’s strategy of finding and supporting entrepreneurs in fields such as software, fintech, marketplaces and the consumer internet. Almost two-thirds of the firm’s investments have been made in Europe, through its London and Berlin hubs, and the rest in its Silicon Valley office in Menlo Park. This is the company’s fifth fund which will target early stage founders developing technology to increase global recovery.

Founded in 2000, DN Capital manages $950M across five funds and comes with a record of backing startups like Auto1 (FSE), Shazam (Apple), Endeca (Oracle), OLX (Naspers), MrSpex(MRX), Remitly, GoStudent, Jobandtalent, Hometogo.

“We’ve always preferred to let our founders and their incredible numbers talk for us,” says Nenad Marovac DN Capital’s founder. “When we say we only partner with the best, we mean it. We spend vast amounts of time with entrepreneurs understanding the market, their team, their product, and  to get to the heart of what they’re trying to achieve, long before we even talk about money. Then we work together with the entrepreneurs as partners to help them where they need it.” 

“The launch of our fifth fund gives us further scope to uncover new entrepreneurs with the biggest, brightest global ambitions. We pride ourselves on the fact that we work as hard as founders do to help them build their businesses, and this is something that’s going to be even more crucial as we, as a society, look to come back stronger following the pandemic,” he says.

A Much Needed Fund For Post-COVID Era

DN Capital co-founder and managing partner Steve Schlenker believes that this fund would help in the recovery of the dastardly impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on society, work, and behaviours. “There are tech founders across the globe right now on critical missions to accelerate this recovery and help address the needs, and solve the biggest problems, of the post-COVID world,” he says. “At DN Capital, we are committed to supporting them to achieve these goals.”