Eight Roads Ventures, a venture capital branch of financial services group Fidelity, launched a $375m third fund yesterday aimed at Europe and Israel-based growth-stage companies.
ERVE III will be sector-agnostic, but Eight Roads identified enterprise, consumer, financial technology and healthcare IT as areas of particular interest. The vehicle, Eight Roads’ third, will be managed by its London office, and is expected to make 15 to 20 investments of $10m to $30m each.
In addition to providing capital, Eight Roads is also keen to support companies with scaling sales and marketing efforts, assisting with international expansion plans and creating a management hierarchy.
Eight Roads was established in 2015 through the merger of three VC and private equity divisions: UK-based funds Fidelity Growth Partners Europe and Moonray Investors, and China-based Fidelity Growth Partners Asia. It was allocated a $233m fund at that time.
Fidelity Growth Partners Europe had previously launched with a $150m vehicle focused on Europe in 2010. To date, Eight Roads’ European portfolio has grown to more than 20 companies.
ERVE III follows a $250m fund Eight Roads established in September 2017 to invest in China-based healthcare companies.
Davor Hebel, managing partner and head of Eight Roads Ventures Europe, said: “We find ambitious entrepreneurs across the continent but there is a real lack of credible scale-up advice and business-building experience to help them beat the odds.
“We will continue to support our entrepreneurs with our global platform and value-add team of operators as they take their companies from 50 to 500 employees and beyond. We are confident that with the right help the European ecosystem can systematically create $10bn+ global tech businesses.”