A host of corporate limited partners have contributed to two funds launched by Germany-based venture capital firm E.ventures yesterday that totalled $400m in size, according to Handelsblatt.
The vehicles in question are a $225m fund that will invest in the US out of an office in San Francisco, and a $175m Europe-oriented fund that will be based in Berlin.
Existing backers including mail-order retailer Otto Group, supermarket chain Lidl, packaged food producer Dr Oetker and automotive manufacturer Porsche were joined by new LPs like brewery owner Bitburger, cleaning device provider Kärcher and shoe retailer Deichmann.
Founded in 1999, E.ventures invests in consumer, financial and software-as-a-service technology developers, using proprietary technology to assess possible targets. It maintains offices in Europe and the US and has partners located in China, Japan and Brazil.
The new funds will both look to provide between $1.5m and $10m for each deal in which they participate, seeking out companies from pre-series A to series B stage. E.ventures now has a total of $1.6bn under management.
Christian Leybold, the E.ventures co-founder who is also the managing partner responsible for European Union deals, said: “With the recent success of European IPOs such as FarFetch and Spotify, Europe-based companies with global reach have never been better positioned.
“We look forward to doubling down on investing in early stage founders in Europe and the US with the new capital raised from top-tier global LPs.”
E.ventures exits in the past year include the $885m IPO of upmarket fashion e-commerce platform FarFetch, the $670m acquisition of app deployment software provider Nginx and the flotation of another luxury goods e-commerce platform, The RealReal, which raised $300m.