[{"id":2332179,"date":"2022-06-08T00:20:14","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T07:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=2332179"},"modified":"2022-06-08T14:02:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T21:02:28","slug":"felix-capital-closes-fourth-fund-at-600m-its-biggest-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/06\/08\/felix-capital-closes-fourth-fund-at-600m-its-biggest-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Felix Capital closes fourth fund at $600M, its biggest yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
Amid rising uncertainty about how financing will look for tech in the months and maybe years to come, one of the newer kids on the VC block in Europe is today announcing the closing of its latest and largest fund to date. Felix Capital<\/a> — the London-based firm founded and headed by Frederic Court — has raised $600 million. It plans to use the money to continue investing mainly in its sweet spot of commerce-driven startups, complemented by businesses building tools to help run those (including new spins on finance around cryptocurrency and web3) and the future of work overall, which includes sustainability, too.<\/p>\n Felix believes that the collective experiences of its investors, combined with its investment focus, will help carry it through times that are decidedly more challenging for the world of startup finance and growth, maybe laying more groundwork for healthier approaches overall.<\/p>\n “I’ve lived through a couple of downturns starting in 2000,” Court said in an interview. “I’ve spent a lot of time undoing what had been done before. Complex terms like preferred returns, we\u2019d never do that now. For all the money coming in very quickly to the industry, say from hedge funds or others not in industry, they came in with a short-term-gains mantra. But our business is fundamentally a long-term business, and it takes a long time to build a great company. That’s even more true on the consumer side, you can\u2019t just over-accelerate a brand.”<\/p>\n Felix’s portfolio<\/a> includes companies that have now gone public like Farfetch and Deliveroo, as well as the likes of Sorare, Papier, Juni, Cocomelon owner Moonbug, scooter startup Dott and Goop. Felix invests both at the early stage and in growth rounds. Its plan is to double down on existing bets, as well as bring 20-25 more companies, mostly in Europe but also North America, into the fold.<\/p>\n The fund will take the total managed by Felix to $1.2 billion. That’s not only big leap from the $120 million the firm launched with in 2015<\/a>, but it’s also a leap from what Felix had wanted to raise. Court said that its original target was $500 million.<\/p>\n That fact, and the existence of the fund itself, are notable in themselves but perhaps stand out even more given the current state of things in the market.<\/p>\n After a number of frothy years of record-breaking fundraising numbers and precipitous valuations, the tech world is navigating challenging waters these days when it comes to finance. Call it a market correction or something more directly related to any number of economic, political and social shifts, but many are preparing themselves for a moment where money will simply not flow as freely as it did before, not from investors, and potentially — and maybe more worryingly — not from customers, either.<\/p>