Northzone, a Nordic venture capital firm, announced Tuesday that it had raised more than 1 billion euros, making it one of Europe’s largest funding rounds this year.
Northzone to expand its portfolio with Web3 Investments
The firm, which has funded companies such as Spotify, Klarna, and Personio, intends to use the proceeds of its tenth fundraising round to support crypto startups from the seed stage to initial public offering.
Following a record-breaking 2021, venture capital funding has slowed this year due to a drop in public company valuations, higher interest rates, and an uncertain geopolitical backdrop.
“The COVID years were exuberant,” Northzone partner Jeppe Zink said in an interview. “This anomaly known as 2021 can be found in any graph. If you forget about it and look at valuations and deals from 2018 or 2019 as a growth curve, you’ll see that it’s still going on,” He stated.
According to investor website PitchBook, the value of European VC deals totaled 38.9 billion euros in 2019, 105.6 billion euros in 2021, and 54.4 billion euros in the first half of 2022.
However, the total deal value fell 10.6% in the second quarter of this year compared to the first three months.
“Most of our portfolio companies are well capitalized for two to three years,” Northzone partner Jessica Schultz said. “As a result, they are in a position where they can raise when they want to rather than when they have to.”
