Index Ventures today announced the closing of a 350 million early-stage fund, Index Ventures V. Early stage? Wow! And early stage + Europe = Double Wow! How does Index Ventures raise such big funds for early-stage ventures when most investors are still trying to figure out if Treasury Bonds are too risky? In short, it is because it has already invested in some of Europe’s biggest successes, most notably Skype, MySQL, and Last.fm. When you get those kinds of exits ($4.1 billion for Skype, $1 billion for MySQL, and $280 million for Last.fm), investors want to give you more money to try again.
Global Reach
Index Ventures is more global than your average VC. Look at its 100 investments and you will not find the usual Silicon Valley concentration. Just in the last 12 months:
- Criteo and NormOxys (France)
- DimDim (India) (in our Top 10 Enterprise Products)
- Lehigh Technologies and RightScale (US),
MyHeritage and OpTier (Israel) - Playfish and WooMe (UK)
We have provided links to the ventures operating in the web technology space (assuming readers will be less interested in the biotech and green ventures).
Congratulations, Index Ventures.
