London-based Blossom Capital launches $185m Europe-focused fund
London-based venture capital firm Blossom has launched a second $185m (£142m) fund to invest in European tech startups, less than a year after its first raise.
The new fund, which Blossom Capital said was “heavily oversubscribed”, will invest in European tech startups at an early stage, and takes the total raised by the company to $270m.
Blossom raised its first series A-focused fund, worth $85m, in February 2019, and has built a reputation for attracting investments for European startups from major US tech entrepreneurs and investors.
“The volume and quality of European startups is now five times what it was five years ago,” said Blossom Capital founder Ophelia Brown.
“The US funds have noticed this and they are investing more frequently and with more capital in the very best European startups.”
Investors in the new fund are understood to include Vladimir Tenev, who co-founded US trading app Robinhood. Tenev is also understood to have invested in Blossom’s first fundraise.
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Brown said her company would use the new fund to “keep investing with conviction in European-founded companies that we know will one day operate successfully in global markets.”
Blossom has previously invested in startups including Deliveroo and Robinhood. Its current investments include payments unicorn Checkout.com, travel platform Duffel, and rental marketplace Fat Llama.
“As Europe’s first wave of unicorns have their exits, we are seeing the next generation of angel investors and founders emerging, having seen what it takes to build for hyper-scale,” said Blossom Capital partner Imran Ghory.
“We want to work closely with these early-stage investors and founders, right across the continent.”
Recent data from Tech Nation and Dealroom showed that UK tech startups attracted a third of Europe’s £30.4bn of venture capital funding in 2019.
Funding for UK tech firms rose 44 per cent year-on-year to hit a total of £10.1bn, more than Germany and France combined.