Firstminute Capital launches US$111mln UK and Europe start-up fund

Firstminute Capital is launching a new GBP87mln (US$111mln) venture fund aimed at European start-ups which has already got the backing of big-name Silicon Valley investors.

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Palantir co-founder are said to be among the fund’s top investors along with founders of businesses such as Wayfair, Ocado, MongoDB and Zalando.

The anchor investor is RIT Capital Partners and Chinese investor Tencent is also participating.

The fund will be based in London and Firstminute said half of the companies in its portfolio are headquartered in the UK.

“European technology is reaching escape velocity, and it’s fantastic to enable so many global serial entrepreneurs to give their experience to the next generation: we have over 70 unicorn founders joining us on this journey so far, and more to come as we approach final close,” said Brent Hoberman, Firstminute co-founder (previously co-founder of UK 1990s dot-com success lastminute.com).

“Seed venture investing is attracting ever higher quality backers which will help more founders succeed.”