Creandum has raised its seventh fund, a €500m fund to support seed and early-stage startups in Europe.
The oversubscribed fund was raised in 12 weeks and is backed by 30 global LPs, with more than half of the capital coming from US investors. Creandum’s investor base includes five of the eight largest US university endowments, as well as pension funds and foundations.
It aims to make 35-40 investments at seed and Series A stages across all sectors over the next two to three years.
Creandum is known for being an early backer of Spotify, Klarna and Depop. Recently it participated in the $220m seed round for French AI startup H, the $18m Series A for German SaaS company Codesphere and the $16m Series A for Spanish fintech Embat.
The VC, which has offices in Stockholm, Berlin, London and San Francisco, says one in six of its early-stage investments have turned into unicorns.
In a statement, Creandum said that the closure of its latest fund demonstrates strong interest from the world’s top investors in European tech, particularly at the early stages. Nearly a third of all seed funding globally goes to European startups, and Europe is home to more than 500 unicorns across 65 cities and 25 countries.
While VC investment remains significantly down from 2021 highs, Creandum emphasised that the closure of its latest fund highlights a robust appetite from top investors for exposure to European tech, especially at the early stages.