HV Capital Closes $782 Million Fund for ‘Technology Disruptors’

Germany’s HV Capital says it has closed a €710 million ($782 million) fund targeting “high-growth” firms.

The new fund — the venture capital (VC) investment group’s ninth — was announced Thursday (May 4) on HV Capital’s LinkedIn page and comes at a time when many companies are struggling to find funding.

Rainer Märkle, HV’s general partner, said the fund will let his firm “partner with outstanding entrepreneurs, who from every industry and market across the continent, are making incredible differences to the way we live our lives.”

We look forward to helping them unlock opportunities for growth so that they can scale sustainably and build the next great European winners,” Märkle added.

The fund will be divided into two vehicles — Fund IX Venture and Fund IX Growth, to invest in “technology disruptors across all growth phases,” HV said.

The fund’s close comes during what has been a tough time for companies seeking to raise money. As noted here recently, March’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank — which helped fund and/or provided banking services to a host of VC-backed companies — rattled a sector that was already coping with a funding drought.

“Just over a year ago, the startup funding landscape was basking in the glow of a sizzling 2021 and hoping to carry the momentum into the new year,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “However, at the beginning of 2023, funding for startups has considerably slowed down, almost to a crawl.”

Yet not every part of the VC world is struggling. PYMNTS reported Thursday that investments raised by startups in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) and broader Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) area last year surpassed the $3 billion mark as investors funded promising young companies despite a worldwide slowdown.

“We’re really seeing an upward trend in terms of the amount of funding that takes place, the number of VCs that are in the region, and the number of good startups that are around,” Simon Sharp, partner at Global Ventures, a MENA-focused VC firm, told PYMNTS.

Among the thriving sectors is AgriTech, an especially vital sector for the MENA region, where startups in areas such as last-mile delivery, warehousing and fulfillment to help improve food production and mitigate food insecurity are increasingly becoming hot funding prospects.

“The MENA region imports about 85% of food produce, so that’s something legislation wants to change, and we’ve seen that trickle through in terms of startups that have emerged across the AgriTech value chain to try and solve that problem,” Sharp said.