Speedinvest raises €500m fund for early stage companies

Speedinvest, a pan-European venture capital for early-stage startups, has raised €500m of new cash.

Those stumping up the cash include Erste Bank, Raiffeisenbank, New Enterprise Associates and the European Investment Fund.

Launched in 2011 as a €10m microfund, Speedinvest has six unicorns in its portfolio including Bitpanda, GoStudent, Open, TIER Mobility, Wayflyer and Wefox).

Later-stage investing in startups has been a tough place to be in 2022 but the cash is continuing to flow to early stage companies. 

Despite earlier stage companies being riskier, there are several logical reasons for this trend.  

Early stage companies are under less immediate pressure to build revenues and instead can focus on product and building teams while staying flexible in their strategy. 

If you compare this with later stage firms, who might already be earning substantial revenues this is a distinct advantage when you consider the implications of a potential recessionary hit to revenues.

Also, access to talent has increased owing to tens of thousands of otherwise talented people laid off by cost-cutting companies. 

With later stage valuations also increasingly challenged for the more mature companies, the attractiveness for employees has increased to move to early stage companies or become founders. 

Two-thirds (€300m) of Speedinvest’s new fund will be invested into pre-Seed and Seed tech startups through its fourth flagship fund, Speedinvest 4, while the remaining capital will be used for follow-on co-investments in existing Speedinvest portfolio companies.

The fund invests across six themes Deep Tech, Fintech, Health, Marketplaces & Consumer, Industrial Tech, and SaaS. 

“In just ten years, Speedinvest has grown from a small €10M Austrian fund to one of Europe’s largest Seed investors. This new capital proves there is still room to innovate in European VC. As more and more capital and talent floods the ecosystem, further professionalisation of our industry is required,  said Oliver Holle, CEO and Managing Partner at Speedinvest.