Northzone, a 20 year veteran of the European VC industry, has closed its 8th fund, capped at €300 million, which it will deploy to “early-stage” startups in the region. Specifically, these will be A, B and C rounds, and although investments will span the whole of Europe, there will be particular focus on key tech hubs, including the Nordics, London, and Berlin.
The VC also says that, despite turbulent times, the fund was oversubscribed and that LPs consist of existing investors in previous funds it manages, as well as new “top tier institutional” investors (e.g. pension funds and large family offices) who wanted in on the Northzone action.
The VC — which currently has around €1 billion under management, making it one of the largest in Europe — says it’s been an impressive year for Northzone with exits including the IPO of Tobii, and the sale of Avito in what it claims was one of the largest venture-backed tech M&A deals in Europe.
Northzone also continues to be pretty active of late. Recent investments include game-based learning app Kahoot, on-demand sales workforce platform Universal Avenue, and auction site Catawiki.
The VC has already made two investments from “Northzone VIII”: Zervant, the Finnish e-invoicing company, and CornerJob, the Barcelona-based mobile-app for blue collar jobs.
Regards the type of sectors Northzone’s new fund is targeting, a spokesperson for the VC told me it is seeing lots of interesting developments in fintech, e-commerce, media and B2B SaaS, and that Northzone is keen on companies that take a mobile-first approach.