Here are Europe’s 10 most prominent VC investors to watch in 2018

Investors are the prominent cause for the boom in startups scenario across the globe. According to VC database firm Dealroom, this year has been a record in terms of investments in the startup ecosystem, as we already saw the birth of 15 new startups valued over $1billion. Till now, Europe has five VC backed companies surpassing this $10 billion mark. 

Having said that, the private equity firms have invested around additional €51 billion in European tech companies as well. For those interested to know, below is the list of 10 Europe’s most prominent investors in 2018. Take a look, if you want to raise some funding for your startup.

#1 Index Ventures

With its dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, Index Ventures is a multi-stage international venture capital firm that encourages and backs most ambitious startups. Founded in 1996 by David Rimer, Giuseppe Zocco, and Neil Rime, the company has backed 17 European unicorns including of which ten $1B+ exits and another 8 confirmed unicorns currently in the portfolio. The Index Venture has already teamed up with entrepreneurs in 38 countries across the globe and has helped them grow.

Notable investments: Dropbox, Etsy, Sonos, SoundCloud, Flipboard, King, BlaBlaCar, Squarespace, Just Eat, Lookout, Hortonworks, Nasty Gal, Pure Storage, Supercell, Criteo, Funding Circle and many others. 

#2 Accel Partners

Accel is an early and growth stage venture capital firm that backs up ambitious entrepreneurs across the globe. Founded in 1983 by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz, Accel was an early investor in Spotify and 10 other European unicorns.

Notable investments: Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, MoPub, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Vox Media and others.

#3 HV Holtzbrinck Ventures

This Munich-based venture capital firm supports founders in developing their internet companies. Founded in 2000, the company has been investing in internet and technology companies. It’s worth mentioning that the firm has financed over 160 companies with a total volume funds of around € 1.05 billion. 

Notable investments: Zalando, Delivery Hero, FlixBus and Scalable Capital.

#4 Northzone

Northzone is another early-stage venture capital firm from Europe backing the entrepreneurs to build global companies. Founded in 1996, by Bjørn Stray and Tellef Thorleifsson, the venture capital firm has invested in over 130 companies. The Northzone has offices across the Nordics, London and in New York.

Notable investments: Spotify, iZettle, Trustpilot, Avito, Klarna, Wallapop Lastminute.com, Pricerunner, and more.

#5 LocalGlobe

Founded by Saul Klein in 1999, this firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. This firm has been seeding many firms starting from 1999 and the numbers go somewhere around 174. Since May 2017, the company has been investing its eighth fund around £75 million round in UK startups.

Notable investments: Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, Transferwise and Zoopla.

#6 Point Nine

This Berlin-based venture capital firm focuses on early-stage investments related to SaaS, mobile technology, and digital marketplaces. Founded by Christoph Janz, Kolja Hebenstreit, Pawel Chudzinski in 2011, Point Nine has backed a number of highly successful Internet companies. 

Notable investments: Delivery Hero, Clio, Shiftplanning, Vend, Typeform, and Zendesk.

 #7 Seedcamp 

Founded by Reshma Sohoni and Saul Klein in 2007, the Seedcamp identifies and invests early in some innovative startups with some amazing founders aiming at solving real-problem on the global level. Since its inception, Seedcamp has invested in 260+ startups and have raised over $1B+ in further funding from leading investors.

Notable investments: TransferWise, Revolut, Zemanta, Wefox, BloomsburyAI, UI path and more. 

#8 Hoxton Ventures 

This London-based, early-stage venture capital firm was founded by Hussein Kanji, Rob Kniaz in 2013. The Hoxton Ventures is specialized at seed, start-ups, Series A, and early stage investments. Having said that, this firm focus on backing startups with background on the internet, mobile and software markets, including artificial intelligence. 

Notable investments: Adazza, Algomi, bgd4travel, Babylon, Behavox, Darktrace and more. 

#9 Sofinnova Partners

Sofinnova Partners is a venture capital firm based in Paris. Since its inception, the company has backed over 500 companies at different stages of development. For over 35 years, the company has over 12 highly experienced investment professionals across Europe, the US, and China. As of now, the Sofinnova Partners has over €1.5 billion under management.

Notable investments: Aledia, Apellis, Iterium.

#10 Target Global 

Berlin-based Target Global is a Venture Capital firm backing up fast-growing companies in the fields of e-Commerce, FinTech, travel, software, and transportation. Founded by Alex Frolov in 2012, the company has over $800 million in assets under management and offices in Berlin, Moscow, Tel Aviv and San Francisco. 

Notable investments: Delivery here, Auto 1 group, Wefox, Travelperk, and Dreamlines. 

This list is based on the latest report by Dealroom.

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