
Venture capital (VC) activity spiked in Europe during the first half of 2015, with $6.6bn (£4.24bn) having been invested. This puts Europe on pace to surpass 2014 totals by nearly 60 per cent.
Arik Speier, head of technology at KPMG Somekh Chaikin, said: “VCs in Europe are reducing risk by investing at a later stage. In the past they invested in many companies in a wide portfolio and managed their own risk, now they are shifting strategy and investing in fewer companies and more money in each.” Furthermore, VC-backed companies in the UK raised $1.1bn (£71m) in the second quarter of 2015, taking the total raised so far in 2015 to nearly $2.25bn (£1.45bn). The report also found that the UK accounted for one-third of all venture capital activity in Europe 2015, with key transactions including a $500m (£321.14m) corporate minority investment in London-based OneWeb and a $150m (£96.34m) Series E for Funding Circle. It was suggested that the second quarter saw a rise in late-stage mega-deals, with the average deal size doubling from $26.3m (£16.89m) in the first quarter 2015 to $52.2m (£33.53m) in the second. Four mega-deals sized $100m (£64.23m) or more contributed to this spike in late-stage deal size, including a $526m (£337.84m) Series G round for digital music service Spotify.- The European VC investment trends that took place in Q1 2015
- A look at the most active UK equity investors in the seed, venture and growth space during 2014
- North East holds its own in number of private equity and venture capital-backed businesses
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