A list of series A European investors - who to talk to for post-seed investments in Europe.

Given the current investment environment in Europe, it is hard to pinpoint the exact funding stages of a startup, as the old schoolers in the business used to go about the venture investment.

As old schoolers ourselves, we think that series A is that point when startups look for funding options in order to scale up together with investment partners. Now, also an old school concept, money is not as important as the connections and experience the investor would provide at this stage and believe that there is a number of good European names checking the list of being valuable investment partners for startups looking to raise series A.

We created a list with 15 of them, which you can find below. Don't forget that this report is complemented by a similar one profiling the late stage investors active in Europe and by the one profiling pre-seed and seed institutional investors in Europe.

Acton Capital

Acton Capital Partners is a German venture fund founded in 1999, focusing on startups in the fields of marketplaces, e-commerce, e-services, digital media and SaaS. They invest out of a $215 million fund closed in 2019, with the bigger chunk of their deals in their home market, Germany - they position as a growth fund, doing later stage deals but also venture in the $5-15M territory at series A level.

Anthemis

Anthemis was founded in 2010 by a group of veterans led by Sean Park and investing from multiple funds, with a $700 million one closed as recent as at the end of 2021. Anthemis mostly does financial services, and active at multiple stages from seed to series A/B, with an even deal distribution activity in the $1-50M spectrum.

Balderton

A few years ago, Balderton was positioning itself as standard series A investor in Europe. Things have changed, they now are active as early as seed (even pre-seed) and cover all the way to later stages, since the follow on on their deals late in their funding cycles. Balderton is sector agnostic and in 2021 it closed two funds - a $680 million early growth one to be deployed between $25m and $50m per company through both primary and secondary investments and Fund VIII, a $600m fund focused on early-stage companies.

Blossom Capital

Blossom is a pure series A investor, sometimes venturing a bit early at the seed levels, and also following on with their startups further in the funding cycle. It is a relatively young company, part of the new wave of the VCs from Europe, though already at the third fund closed at the start of 2022 at $432 million. They claim to be a high conviction investor, meaning they prefer to back fewer companies by writing larger cheques, along with building a strong network with peers investors from Europe and US.

Creandum

Creandum is up and coming in Europe - they have made a name in Sweden by backing Spotify early on, and have expanded their scope in Europe in the past 18-24 months, consolidating positions in Germany and opening a London office at the end of 2021. They invest across the whole Europe out of a €265M fund closed in 2019 and are half/half in the seed/series A (sometimes opportunistic B) deal distribution interest. Read also our profile on Creandum.

Eurazeo

Eurazeo is a huge private investment company from France formed as a result of a merger of Azeo and Eurafrance in April 2001. They cover all the private investment spectrum from all over the world, claiming to have raised from their LPs, in 2021 alone, €5.2 billion for deploying via private equity and private debt. And so, they're also active at series A and series B levels in Europe, but also going as early as €400k pre-seed deals.

EQT Ventures

EQT Ventures is probably the most solid and aggressive Nordic investors on international level, and one of the more active in Europe. They are also a relatively young fund (5 years) but have a huge private equity house in the back, EQT, controlled by the wealthiest family office from Sweden (Wallenstam). They are stage agnostic and active at all the investment stages in Europe, including providing expansion money at series A, or opportunistically getting involved later or earlier. Read also our profile on EQT Ventures.

ETF Partners

ETF Partners is a British fund that is investing at series A and beyond across Europe. They invest out of a £167 million fund closed in the summer of 2020 and call themselves impact investors, meaning that they use an impact score card aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals, financial performance, and environmental impact.

Index Ventures

Index Ventures is one of the VC veterans in Europe, as they go back as early as the 90s with doing venture deals. It has dual headquarters in San Francisco and London and in Europe covers all the spectrum from $1 million deals upwards, with a slight accent on the series A/B. In 2021 it announced raising $3.1 billion via three funds - early-stage fund Index Ventures XI ($900m), growth fund Index Ventures Growth VI ($2bn), and seed fund Index Origin ($200m).

Isai

Isai is a venture company from France multistage active at seed/preseed, mid market co-investing in Series A-C deals with Cap Gemini and also running a Tech Growth/LBO fund doing between €5M and €50M per deal. The VC deals are made via a €120M fund (its third) closed in 2020, focused on on digital startups (SaaS, marketplace, AI) from France.

Lakestar

Lakestar is an early and growth stage investments company, founded by the technology investor Klaus Hommels in 2012. It has the rep as one of the best VCs in Europe judged from a ROI perspective and now deploys from a $735 million double fund - Lakestar III and Lakestar Growth I - one-third allocated to early stage and two thirds to growth stage startups from Europe.

Molten Ventures

Molten Ventures, formerly known as Draper Esprit, was founded in 2006 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange, meaning they don't need to raise funds to deploy in the traditional way the VCs work. They invest at series A and beyond across the whole Europe and are industry agnostic.

Northzone

Northzone is one of the oldest and traditional venture investors from the Nordics, HQ-ed London. They invest out of a $500 million fund (its ninth) closed in 2019 at series A and beyond, across Europe and a bit in the US, where they have a small office. Read also our profile on Northzone.

Octopus Ventures

Octopus Ventures is a multi stage European venture capital investor, that is a subsidiary of Octopus Group, a British asset management company. They say they cover seed to series B, across health, fintech, deep tech, consumer and B2B software - and they last closed two funds in 2019: an early stage $280 million one and a £83M growth fund.

Singular VC

Singular VC is also part of the new wave of Euro VCs, founded in 2019 by Jeremy Uzan and Raffi Kamber, formerly with Alven for 11 years. They are investing in Series A/B, generalistic and opportunistic, out of a fund closed in 2020 at €225 million, saying they have an investment model that could help them remain involved even during late-stage rounds.