Holtzbrinck Ventures has closed its fourth Fund, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures Fund IV at EUR177m, raising capital from both Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck and funds managed by HarbourVest Partners, LLC.
Holtzbrinck Ventures, which will now operate as a fully independent venture fund, will continue to execute its strategy of investing in promising early stage companies within the new media sector, which has been consistently successful over the last 12 years. Holtzbrinck will continue its strong support of Holtzbrinck Ventures through its investment in the new fund.
Holtzbrinck Ventures has invested in over 80 new media companies since 1998 and has founded companies like Parship and Experteer, making it one of the largest start-up investors in Europe with a focus on digital businesses. Successful exits include, amongst others, StudiVZ.net, MyHammer.com, Bol.com and most recently brands4friends (acquired by eBay) with a large number of promising, current investments remaining including category leaders such as Groupon, Zalando, Adscale and eDarling.
As the consumer internet sector develops more rapidly and presents an increasing number of highly compelling opportunities, the new fund structure backed by Holtzbrinck and HarbourVest enables Holtzbrinck Ventures to offer entrepreneurs sufficient capital to build their companies. A dedicated pool of capital will be available for seed investments fuelled by a "fast forward" program, enabling a fast and pragmatic way of investing.
"The level of support shown by our existing investor Holtzbrinck has been very encouraging, and we are also delighted to welcome HarbourVest as a new investor both of whom we look forward to working with in the coming years." says Martin Weber, partner of Holtzbrinck Ventures.
As part of the fundraising, Holtzbrinck contributed a large part of its existing new media portfolio to HV Ventures Fund IV and the Holtzbrinck Ventures team will continue managing the portfolio under the current brand in a newly formed entity.
"Working with Holtzbrinck Ventures is a great opportunity to partner with a team with proven success in German and digital media, as well as leverage our team’s expertise in helping strong teams become independent," says Peter Wilson, Managing Director of HarbourVest Partners.
