Speedinvest, a Vienna, Austria-based early stage venture capital firm, closed its second fund, at $100M.
Rather than a few institutional investors, Speedinvest 2 has raised funds by more than 100 entrepreneurs and private investors. The list of backers include Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bulls founder, Herman Hauser and others from startups such as Runtastic, Shpock or Busuu.
The majority of Speedinvest’s investors actively coinvests and in some cases collaborates with selected portfolio companies.
In May, the firm also announced its collaboration with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), which invested $5M in Speedinvest 2 and reserved $50M to drive global growth in its portfolio of EU startups.
Led by Oliver Holle, CEO, Speedinvest 2 is sourcing opportunities from all over Europe, with a particular focus on the CEE region, making seed stage investments of up to $500k in Fintech, Deep Tech and Consumer Internet startups.
To identify investments, the firm has has partnered with Pioneers Ventures, a preseed fund investing $20k to $100K in European startups.
How it works
Speedinvest is run by a total of 12 partners, who spend most of their time in full-scale operational roles for 12 portfolio startups each, typically executing business and corporate development functions in the US or Europe, thereby extending the resources of a given startup team by senior people, network and experience that an average seed stage company could not afford. If things work, the fund earns additional equity points with the contributions coming from these partners, who receive salaries similar in size as the founders that they invest in. But, in turn, they particiate directly in the funds returns, with a portion of every exit’s proceeds going also to them.
FinSMEs
14/12/2015