German VC firm HV Capital, an early-stage and growth venture capital investor has closed its Fund IX at €710 million, making it the largest fund ever raised by the firm. The fund will invest in ‘technology disruptors’ across all growth phases.
Previously, HV Capital closed the Fund III at €533 million to invest across early-stage and growth functions. This fund was focused on ambitious young companies across phases from seed to Series C. It saw the significant potential in later-stage investing and resulted in subsequent funds. In Fund VIII, the early-stage vehicle had €355 million in it while the growth pot had €180 million.
Fund IX investment plans
In the latest Fund IX, it will be equally split into Fund IX Venture and Fund IX Growth, which means the VC firm will back companies from seed to Series D and beyond.
With the early-stage fund, HV Capital plans to invest between €500K and €5 million in 30 to 40 companies from seed to series A. With the growth-stage fund, it plans to invest between €10 million and €60 million in 10 to 15 companies up to Series C. As per the VC firm, 75% of the early-stage fund and 25% of the growth fund are reserved for follow-on investments. Also, 60 to 70% of the deals will be focused in the DACH region, and the rest will be in Europe.
The growth investment portfolio
The companies financed by HV Capital over the past twenty years are now worth a total of around €75 billion, and the value of the investment portfolio is three times higher than the capital invested. The venture capitalist has repaid more than €1.1 billion to investors, which is a return of around 36% annually.
Already, HV Capital has invested in unicorns such as HelloFresh and Zalando. Some of the other popular investments in the portfolio of this VC firm include DeliveryHero, Flixbus, Cabify, SumUp, sennder, Solarisbank, Tourlane, Depop and Urban Sports Club.
Rainer Märkle, General Partner at HV Capital said: “We are very excited to announce the close of HV Capital Fund IX today, a record fund raise which will open new opportunities for us to invest in the next generation of disruptive ideas. Fund IX will allow us to partner with outstanding entrepreneurs, who from every industry and market across the continent, are making incredible differences to the way we live our lives. We look forward to helping them unlock opportunities for growth so that they can scale sustainably and build the next great European winners”.
Four investments have already been made from Fund IX in a product intelligence platform, data analytics, energy transition management and ClimateTech, including Berlin-based SPREAD, Berlin-based Polyteia, Munich-based ecoplanet and Copenhagen-based Agreena.
