Exclusive: Northzone partner says London is still top of investor wishlist
London is still at the top of European investors’ wishlists according to global tech VC investor Northzone.
Having recently raised €1bn in its largest funding round to date, Northzone partner Kilian Pender reckons businesses are still betting big on the City.
“While it’s hard to tell what impact economic downturns are going to have on the market, it would be funny for a boardroom to invest in Europe without thinking of London,” he told City PM
Pender joined Northzone last year, after dipping his toe in the world of finance, with bouts at both Credit Suisse and Blackstone. He also built his own start-up, hiber, which is a SaaS enabled b2b marketplace.
He explained that the current narrative surrounding London’s initial public offering scene hadn’t been helped by listings like Deliveroo and the Hut Group, which he said “hadn’t performed as strongly as investors would have hoped”.
Recent data from EY found that the amount of cash raised via IPOs in London plunged 94 per cent in the first half of the year as firms pulled back from the public markets amid extreme volatility.
However, Pender backed the capital as “one of the top markets to list,” namely because of its rich pool of talent, available capital and range of successful exit options.
In fact, he said Northzone’s own funding round was “a vote of confidence in the European and British investment scene”, and reaffirmed its strategy to focus on “category-defining tech,” as well as founders that were ready to compete on a global stage.
Northzone has previously backed the likes of Spotify and Kahoot! in early-stage rounds, as well as later stage investments like Klarna and Zopa.