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April 25, 2006
VC Firm Northzone Graduates To Top Tier
Less than two years after closing its last fund, Nordic early stage VC, Northzone Ventures, has raised a new one, on target, with a single closing at €175M.
It’s the firm's biggest ever fund, which we say puts it into the top tier of tech VCs in Europe. We know how hard it is to raise a tech VC fund in Europe, so if they’ve done it twice in recent years, without a prolonged marketing process – the performance has to be there.
- Northzone V K/S (Apr 2006) €175M
- Northzone IV K/S (Dec 2003) €78M
- Northzone III (Dec 1999 ) €70M
- Northzone II (Feb 1998) €10M
- Northzone I (Feb 1997) €9M
The last fund it raised was back in 2003, when the nuclear post-bubble winter was still chilling the rest of the industry here. It was a small fund but it turns out to have been a good one.
Investments by this fund include Funcom (OSE: FUNC; a developer and publisher of massive mulitiplayer online games), PriceRunner (shopping comparison acquired by ValueClick) and MCP (mobile communication platforms for ships).
We note that Northzone can bring in the big name co-investors to its portfolio. And even its website sets it apart. It publishes stories about mistakes it made and near misses, along with the success stories. This is pretty unique in Eurpean VC circles. We particularly like the snarky interactive test for entrepreneurs.
We think that this kind of thing confirms what the a:c euro has been saying for the past couple of years (to our freelance editors that weren't interested), there is a new VC cycle underway in Europe.
And despite the difficulties certain brand-name VC funds have had raising capital in the past year, several newcomers have emerged in this cycle that present a change in the ranks here (based on their recent fundraising success): such as Eden Ventures, Baytech, Wellington, Index Ventures, and Pond Ventures, to name a few.
Link - Take the entrerpreneur test at Northzone
Posted on April 25, 2006 07:03 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Venture Capital | Permalink
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