Northzone, Swedish VC fund whose previous investments include Spotify, Klarna, iZettle or Kahoot just announced their new $500 million fund, Northzone IX. The new fund attracted existing and new Limited Partners, and was raised at record speed, becoming one of the largest early stage venture capital funds raised in Europe this year.
The fund will double down on investing in early-stage innovative consumer and enterprise companies across Europe and the US East Coast, focusing primarily on Series A and B rounds. Selective seed stage investments will continue to be a part of the investment strategy. The fund has already made three investments: Pollen (London), Spacemaker (Oslo) and Livepeer (NYC).
The majority of Northzone’s investment team have previously founded companies, compared to an average of under 10 percent of Venture Capital funds based in the UK. With the launch of Northzone IX, Hello Fresh co-founder Jessica Schultz and Dots co-founder Paul Murphy have been promoted to General Partners, alongside Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Jeppe Zink, and Michiel Kotting.
Partner Jessica Schultz said: “We have always stood behind strong-minded founders with the ambition to think big and the conviction to build transformative businesses. This latest fund puts us in a strong position, together with our collective experience as investors, founders and operators, to back early-stage founders with the greatest potential.”
Partner Paul Murphy added: “The start-up ecosystems beyond Silicon Valley have seen a step change in recent years in quality, scale and an abundance of experienced founder and operator talent, along with deeper pockets of capital. There has never been a better time for tech entrepreneurs in Europe.”
Read about the previous Northzone funds here, here & here.
