Made.com backer Eight Roads Ventures has just raised a new $375m growth fund
Eight Roads Ventures, the venture capital firm which has backed furniture store Made.com and beauty bookings app Treatwell, has just closed a new $375m (£269) fund.
Having built on the previous £150m European fund total, Eight Roads – the venture capital branch of Fidelity International – has said the third fund “reflects the increasing number of growth stage companies looking for investment”.
The London-based team will focus on technology companies in the consumer, fintech and healthcare IT sectors, also looking at businesses in Israel as well as Europe.
Read more: Designer homeware site Made.com turned a profit in the UK for the first time last year
However the firm implied it will not be shifting its gaze too far from home for long.
“Brexit has had no impact on us thus far. Companies based here like Made.com continue to do well and in fact our last four investments – Decibel Insight, Rimilia, Duco and OTA Insight – came out of the UK,” said Davor Hebel, head of Eight Roads Ventures Europe.
“We hope that the UK maintains an immigration-friendly stance to keep attracting the world’s best talent for its scale-ups, a critical ingredient for building globally successful companies.”
Eight Roads, which has also backed online retail platform Notonthehighstreet.com, will invest an average of $10m to $30m in 15 to 20 companies through the new fund.
“We find ambitious entrepreneurs across the continent but there is a real lack of credible scale-up advice and business-building experience to help them beat the odds,” Hebel added.
“We will continue to support our entrepreneurs with our global platform and value-add team of operators as they take their companies from 50 to 500 employees and beyond. We are confident that with the right help the European ecosystem can systematically create $10bn-plus global tech businesses.”
Read more: Don’t underestimate Europe’s tech entrepreneurs: they’re more ambitious than you think