Early-stage investor Seedcamp has closed its fourth round of funding at £60m, including £2m of investment from some of its founders and mentors.
The money will enable Seedcamp to invest in up to 100 startups from across Europe at pre-Seed and Seed stages. The company has already started making investment with this fund, which first closed at £41m in November 2017.
Named ‘Fund IV’, it has been used to back 15 new companies including Factmata, Sweatcoin, Pace, Homie, Vantik, doctorly, StepLadder, Maze and Veratrak.
Seedcamp co-founder and managing partner Reshma Sohoni, said: “The Seedcamp story is one that’s touched so many people across the world over our 11 years and we’re thrilled to welcome over 100 founders, mentors and angels from across the Seedcamp Nation who will play an active role in our future.
“At Seedcamp our ambition is bold to match that of our founders and we believe we have the perfect team and investors assembled to help our companies and our LPs achieve outsized results for Europe and beyond,” she added.
Carlos Eduardo Espinal, also a managing partner at Seedcamp went on to note: “When we talk about Seedcamp as a lifelong community of support we really mean it; it’s amazing to have founders who we backed when we were first starting out join us as part of our new fund as we invest in the next generation of world-class entrepreneurial talent.”
The new investment from over 100 founders includes the likes of Daniel Dines (UiPath), Taavet Hinrikus (TransferWise), Sten Tamkivi (MoveGuides), Ryan Notz (MyBuilder) and Boštjan Špetič. Michael Pennington of Gumtree, Ed Wray from Betfair and Barry Smith of Skyscanner also contributed.
Part of the money was also crowdfunded on Seedrs, as part of a new partnership with the firm.
Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, commented: “This is a fantastic and genuinely innovative collaboration between the venture capital and equity crowdfunding spaces. We’re proud to have built an infrastructure that allows us to open up highly attractive funds, such as Seedcamp’s Fund IV, to more investors than ever possible before.
“We very much look forward to working with Seedcamp and their companies in the years to come.”
Seedcamp first launched back in 2007, with $2.5m to invest in companies, much less than today’s £60m.
Fund IV also includes an increase in capital that Seedcamp will invest in startups at pre-Seed and Seed stages alongside money held back for follow-on rounds up to Series B and approval to invest in crypto tokens.
Today’s news comes after VC firm Draper Esprit announced it would acquire Seedcamp funds I and II for £17.9m in October last year.