European venture capital firm Dawn has closed the Dawn Capital Opportunities Fund at USD125 million. The fund will see the firm double down on investments in the most promising European tech companies in Dawn’s portfolio and elsewhere, with a specific focus on C-rounds and beyond.
The new fund, which is the largest B2B Opportunities Fund ever raised in Europe, will enable Dawn to invest up to USD70 million in European entrepreneurs that are building scalable, game-changing technology to solve the greatest tech challenges facing businesses today.
Europe is now increasingly the home of global tech category leaders which are turning down early M&A interest to focus on growth for longer. With this added capital, Dawn will stay relevant as a source of capital along the whole journey through to large M&A transactions and IPOs.
The Fund is backed by institutional and family office investors across Europe and the US, including British Patient Capital.
Dawn’s first two flagship earlier stage funds are both in the top 5 per cent of global VC funds for their vintages. Dawn has backed some of Europe’s most successful technology entrepreneurs of the past five years, from Peter Bauer and the team at Mimecast, which is today valued at USD2.7 billion, to Jacob de Geer, Magnus Nilsson and the team at iZettle, which exited to PayPal for USD2.2 billion. More recent investments include backing Felix Van de Maele and the team at Collibra, Belgium’s first unicorn, which is already in the new Opportunities Fund portfolio.
In addition to doubling down on its most successful investments to date, Dawn will also be looking to invest in other high-performing late-stage European tech companies to expand its portfolio.
Haakon Overli, General Partner at Dawn Capital, says: “Europe has significant depth of tech talent, increasingly skilled entrepreneurs, and a growing back catalogue of success stories, many of which have been backed by Dawn.”
“Our investors and the Dawn team felt real conviction around the concept of the Opportunities Fund as we were seeing exciting companies in our portfolio that want to run longer and be around as independent companies for years to come.”
“The new fund means we can support the next wave of success stories further through their journeys. We remain very grateful for the continuing support of our investors and are excited to continue working for our amazing founders who allowed us to reach this milestone.”
Catherine Lewis La Torre, CEO, British Patient Capital, says: “Our investment into Dawn’s Opportunities Fund provides additional patient capital for more established high growth potential businesses looking to scale up. Enabling these types of businesses to access the long-term investment they need to achieve their growth potential is a key aim for British Patient Capital, and we look forward to working with Dawn as they continue to develop their portfolio companies into world-class businesses.”
Felix Van de Maele, Founder and CEO of Collibra, says: “The support of our significant investors has enabled Collibra to grow from our early origins in Belgium to become a global category leader. Historically, it has been a challenge to find such support—and the capital necessary to grow—in Europe. We are pleased that we were able to count on our long-standing backers at Dawn for a substantial commitment from the new Opportunities Fund in connection with our recent USD100 million funding round led by Alphabet’s growth fund, CapitalG.”
