Balderton Capital

Last updated
Balderton Capital
Company type Private
Industry Venture capital
Founded2000;25 years ago (2000)
Headquarters London, WC1
United Kingdom
Key people
 Bernard Liautaud, Daniel Waterhouse, Suranga Chandratillake, James Wise, Rob Moffat, Rana Yared
Total assets $7.0 billion
Number of employees
60
Website www.balderton.com

Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early and growth stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe. It is considered to be among the four-biggest venture capital firms in the English capital. [1]

Contents

History

Founded in 2000 as Benchmark Capital Europe, Balderton Capital became fully independent in 2007. [2] [3] The company made over 100 early-stage investments between 2000 and 2020, including Revolut, Dream Games, The Hut Group, MySQL, Yoox, Depop, Talend, Recorded Future, NaturalMotion, Quantum Systems, GoCardless, CityMapper, Wayve, and Sophia Genetics.

Partners

The partners of the firm are: Bernard Liautaud, Tim Bunting, Suranga Chandratillake, Rob Moffat, Daniel Waterhouse, James Wise, and Rana Yared. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [ excessive citations ]

Funding

In November 2019, Balderton announced Balderton VII, a new $400m fund to invest in European companies at Series A. [10] The new fund will reportedly make approximately 12 investments annually. [11] In 2018, Balderton announced the first fund dedicated to buying equity from existing shareholders of European technology startups. [12] In 2021, Balderton announced the first fund dedicated to growth, with $680M under management and a further $600M for early stage investing, bringing its total assets to over $5B. In 2024 they raised a further $1.3B across their Early and Growth funds, the largest raise for a European venture firm at the time. [13] [14] [15]

Investments

Notable investments have included:

Exits

Since 2008, Balderton has had many prominent exits, including Betfair ($2bn IPO of which they owned 3.95%), [26] Bebo ($850m sale to AOL), [27] Depop ( sale to Etsy for $1.65B ), [28] Scansafe (sale to Cisco, 30% stake [29] ), Lovefilm (sale to Amazon.com, 5% stake [30] ), Yoox ($700m IPO), MySQL ($1bn sale to Sun Microsystems, 15% stake [31] ), Big Fish Games (sold to Churchill Downs for $885m), [18] Recorded Future ($780m sale to Insight Partners, [32] Sunrise (sold to Microsoft), [33] Talend (2016, Nasdaq IPO at $1.5B), Sophia Genetics ( 2021, Nasdaq IPO at $1.2B), Darktrace (2021, FTSE IPO at $3.5B ), Frontier Car Group (majority bought by OLX in 2019 for $700M), [34] and Magic Pony Technologies (sold to Twitter). [35] [36]

References

  1. ↑ "Balderton Capital raises new $400M fund to back European tech startups at Series A". TechCrunch. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  2. ↑ Loukili, Khadija (10 June 2021). "Balderton Raises $680 Million Growth Fund To Help European Tech Compete Globally". Rabo Frontier Ventures.
  3. ↑ "Benchmark Europe declares independence; now "Balderton Capital"". VentureBeat. 2007-06-07. Retrieved 2022-05-17.
  4. ↑ Bradshaw, Tim (15 June 2008). "Liautaud joins Balderton Capital". Financial Times . Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  5. ↑ Li, Charmaine (17 October 2013). "Balderton Capital hires Wellington Partners' Daniel Waterhouse". venturevillage.eu. Archived from the original on 2 August 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "Suranga Chandratillake joins Balderton Capital as GP". Thomson Reuters. 20 January 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  7. ↑ Uber executive joins London venture capital firm Balderton - Telegraph
  8. ↑ Balderton Capital Promotes Rob Moffat And James Wise To Partner | TechCrunch
  9. ↑ Weil, Dan (5 February 2020). "Goldman Sachs Partner in Technology Investments, Rana Yared, Leaves Firm". TheStreet. Retrieved 2020-02-07.
  10. ↑ "Balderton Capital raises new $400M fund to back European tech startups at Series A". TechCrunch. 12 November 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
  11. ↑ Browne, Ryan (2019-11-12). "A new $400 million tech fund wants to help European start-ups compete with Silicon Valley and China". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-04-09.
  12. ↑ "Balderton pioneers fund for buying stakes in European start-ups". Financial Times . 13 October 2018. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
  13. ↑ "Balderton launches $680M 'early growth' fund to lure startups looking for a different kind of capital". TechCrunch. 10 June 2021. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  14. ↑ Martin, Iain. "Balderton Raises $600 Million Early Stage Fund". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-11-18.
  15. ↑ Butcher, Mike (2024-08-12). "Euro VCs welcome Balderton's fresh $1.3B but grumble about Europe's AI misses". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-09-19.
  16. ↑ Fowler, Nina (27 August 2013). "Balderton Capital backs crowdsourced 3D printing network 3D Hubs". venturevillage.eu. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  17. ↑ "Aircall Rides Work-From-Home Wave, Now Valued at $500 Million". Bloomberg.com. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  18. 1 2 Wingfield, Nick (13 November 2014). "Churchill Downs to Buy Big Fish Games for up to $885 Million". The New York Times.
  19. ↑ "Portfolio - Balderton Capital". Archived from the original on 2014-07-04. Retrieved 2014-09-21.
  20. ↑ "Funnel raises $10m to expand its platform for fully automated marketing reporting". balderton.com. 19 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  21. ↑ Sun Picks Up MySQL For $1 Billion; Open Source Is A Legitimate Business Model | TechCrunch
  22. ↑ Edwards, Cliff (31 January 2014). "Zynga Buys NaturalMotion to Bolster Mobile, Cut Staff". Bloomberg. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  23. ↑ "Hybrid real estate agent McMakler welcomes Balderton Capital and GR Capital as new investors". 23 October 2019.
  24. ↑ Grant, Rebecca (17 July 2013). "Vivino uncorks $10.3M to turn anyone into a wine snob". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  25. ↑ Butcher, Mike (28 November 2023). "As pet owners turn to mobile insurance apps, Lassie raises $25M Series B led by Balderton". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
  26. ↑ McDermid, Riley (22 October 2010). "Betfair's IPO soars as investors embrace social gaming". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  27. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie (14 March 2008). "Bebo sale to AOL nets founders a fortune in 3 years". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  28. ↑ "Etsy buys secondhand clothing app Depop to tap into gen Z". the Guardian. 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2021-11-18.
  29. ↑ Hancock, Ciaran. "ScanSafe sale nets Balderton $55m". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2021-06-12.
  30. ↑ "Shareholders at LoveFilm cash in on bid". CityAM. 2011-01-20. Retrieved 2021-06-12.
  31. ↑ "Index Ventures, Balderton and Benchmark share in $1bn spoils | Private Equity International". www.privateequityinternational.com. 4 January 2013. Retrieved 2021-06-12.
  32. ↑ "Insight Partners acquires threat intel company Recorded Future for $780M". TechCrunch. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-24.
  33. ↑ "Microsoft acquires Sunrise calendar". 4 February 2015.
  34. ↑ "OLX Group invests up to $400M in used car marketplace Frontier Car Group at $700M valuation". 11 November 2019.
  35. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (20 June 2016). "Twitter pays up to $150M for Magic Pony Technology, which uses neural networks to improve images". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-03-03.
  36. ↑ "Twitter is buying Magic Pony technology". 20 June 2016.

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