Project A Ventures launched 10 years ago in Berlin when a handful of former Rocket Internet players decided they were going to try their hand at the startup. They have since performed quite well, investing early in some of Europe’s biggest tech companies, such as Trade Republic, Kry, sender, WorldRemit, Spryker, and Voi.
VC has now closed its fourth fund at $375 million, the largest fund to date, bringing the company’s total assets under management to $1 billion.
Investing from pre-seed to Series A, Project A focuses on B2C and B2B including fintech, commerce, enterprise software, data infrastructure, supply chain and climate technology.
Uwe Horstmann, General Partner and Co-Founder of Project A said in a statement: “The closing of our fourth fund is an important milestone in our corporate history as it marks an anniversary. 10 years Project A successfully supports founders across Europe… We are continuing to expand our operating VC model to have our functional experts directly support companies. in our portfolio in scaling their business and technology. ”
This “active VC” model includes more than 140 functional professionals who support the companies in its portfolio, he said.
Project A also announced that it plans to expand its private equity co-investment operation and will invest up to $80 million in Private Equity deals, in the late ‘growth’ stage of market, after they built an 11-dollar private equity portfolio. investments.
Regarding the impending recession, I asked Horstmann how the proponents of Project A’s LPs felt: “Of course there are differences among investors, but I would say most investors do. All of our investors expect this at some point. Large institutional investors from the US have experience in that too – they’ve been around for a while. We share the view that we need to prepare our portfolio for a potentially difficult time ahead in terms of the funding environment, but it is indeed a great time to make new investments. : The underlying positive trend in the European ecosystem remains intact and we invest with a 6-10 year horizon anyway. ”
I also asked what new directions the fund would take: “We will continue to operate two strategies: a) early-stage joint venture (pre-seed for Series A) and b) private equity co-investment . Both strategies are based on more than 140 full-time operational specialist groups that we run – unique to Europe to our knowledge. While we could have made this fund much larger, we feel the scale is right for us, as it allows us to build an interesting portfolio across Europe and across the globe. different industries and verticals – all at the same time allowing for more investment per company,” he said.
