Vienna-based early-stage VC Speedinvest has closed its fourth early-stage fund, Speedinvest 4, at €350 million (around $380 million at today’s exchange rate), surpassing the initial goal of €300 million ($325 million). This follows the final €50 million close supported by several new institutional investors, including Aviva, PwC Germany, Bitburger, ODDO BHF and Abeille Assurances Ventures.
Long-term investors the European Investment Fund (EIF) and first-time investors Generali also joined the close alongside government funds, banks, insurance companies, pension funds and large family offices. Speedinvest’s portfolio companies include Bitpanda, GoStudent, Billie, Planetly, TWAICE and Yokoy. Some of the founders of these companies have also backed Speedinvest’s new fund.
The VC firm says the funds will be utilized to enhance the VC’s portfolio and back the global scaling of early-stage startups. Already, multiple investments have been made across Europe via Speedinvest 4. Speedinvest’s total assets under management now exceeds €1 billion.
Some notable investments via the fund include Finres (fintech, France), Surfboard (SaaS and infra, U.K.), Fertifa (health and biotech, U.K.), Cylib (deep tech, Germany), Neocarbon (climate and industrial tech, Germany) and Fairlyne (marketplaces and consumer, France).
“In times where access to capital in our industry has been the scarcest in the last 10 or more years, reaching this milestone is an amazing testament to how investors share our vision of creating a pioneering, pan-European investment platform, which is both scalable and highly impactful for our portfolio companies, our LPs, and the wider European ecosystem,” Speedinvest’s CEO and managing partner Oliver Holle said in a statement.
With 40+ investment managers in Europe and offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris and Vienna, Speedinvest focuses its early-stage investments in six dedicated vertical teams: deep tech, fintech, health and biotech, marketplaces and consumer, climate and industrial tech, and SaaS and infrastructure. As per the company, more than 60% of its European startup investments reach Series A after backing them at the pre-seed and seed stage. It is also ranked among the most active seed investors in European unicorns.
“By committing capital to this final close, we are strengthening our positioning as an investor of the European tech environment, fostering an innovation culture in our businesses to provide cutting-edge solutions to our customers and stakeholders,” Abeille Assurances Ventures head Madani Safsaf said in a statement.
Outside Europe, Speedinvest is active in Africa (Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria); the Middle East (UAE and Saudi Arabia); Latin America (Brazil, Colombia and Mexico); and South Asia (India and Pakistan).