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Europe's First Accelerator for VC Fundraising is Here! Is it too late? VCs often face significant challenges in fundraising, but an exciting new development is set to change the game. Mountside Ventures is launching Europe’s first VC fundraising accelerator in early 2025. Designed to support emerging managers (especially those raising their first to third funds), the 12-week program aims to help VCs connect with relevant LPs and become better fundraisers. With backing from key partners like HFL, Osborne Clarke, Sage, Ballou PR,. and more, the program offers: - Matchmaking events across Europe - Mentoring from seasoned LPs and VCs like Robin Klein (LocalGlobe), Haakon Overli (Dawn Capital), and Christian Stiebner (KfW) - Workshops on fundraising strategies The accelerator also seeks to level the playing field for underrepresented fund managers, offering free participation to 15 selected managers. Even those not selected will receive resources like fundraising decks and LP lists. This is a game-changing opportunity for VCs navigating Europe’s complex funding landscape! #VC #Fundraising #VentureCapital #LPs #VCFundraising #EuropeStartups #Innovation https://lnkd.in/dJGD4NHx

Today we announced our newest $1.6 billion fund, IVP 18. I had the privilege of joining IVP 19 years ago when we were investing out of IVP XI, a $300M vehicle raised in the year 2004. Our mission remains the same - to fuel growth in the sharpest technology companies. A huge thanks to the limited partners of fund 18 who are entrusting us to be stewards of their capital - we don't take that responsibility for granted. The level of founder talent is sky-high, especially as they harness the power of AI to build businesses that would have been impossible even 2 years ago. These entrepreneurs are resilient and battle-tested - they are often the ones who build the largest and longest enduring companies. We deeply believe the founders we partner with over the next decade will be some of the most transformative builders we have ever worked with over our 44 year history. We've already partnered with pathbreaking AI native companies like Grammarly DeepL Jasper Perplexity Glean Abridge Baseten and are excited for many more to add to this list in fund 18! A special thanks to the amazing founders who spoke with Allie Garfinkle. We are always indebted to be a small part of your incredible journeys. George Kurtz Jyoti Bansal Ilkka Paananen Bipul Sinha thank you! None of this is possible without the tenacious team at IVP. The true joy is being able to work with these individuals over the course of months, years and decades. Steve Harrick Eric Liaw Tom Loverro Ajay Vashee Cack Wilhelm Alex Lim Dennis Phelps Jules Maltz Sandy Miller Todd Chaffee Norm Fogelsong Richard Clarke Tamar Yehoshua Blair Shane Tracy Hogan Kelly O'Kane Davey Nickels Leslie Schuster Stolper Zack Willis Angela Zhu Karthik Ramakrishnan Shravan N. James Black and many others make the wheels turn ever day! Lastly, we honor the legacy of IVP founder Reid Dennis who passed away last week. During the many uncertain months in 2022 and 2023, I went back to an interview that Reid did on the oral history of venture capital during the last crisis back in 2009. In it, he walked through the evolution of our industry and firm. One of his favorite phrases was "Innovation is nothing new...", a tongue in cheek reminder that the ideation/creation process never ends and will always bring sunny days after periods of so called doom and gloom. Read more about IVP and our new fund in Fortune: https://lnkd.in/gB8n47Py

We've raised $1.3B Balderton Capital in new funds across early and growth to continue supporting UK & European technology founders. This is the 8th(!) fundraise I've been part of and have shared some thoughts on why venture matters, how fundraising in Europe has changed and how we differentiate ourselves through conviction here: https://lnkd.in/e2XRcagq

Today’s limited partners in VC are not your grandfather’s LPs (though the only multi-generational VC’s who could confirm would be my buddy Adam Draper ⏻ and his grandpa Bill Draper :) As Dan Primack notes in Axios, the LP base is shifting. Lengthier distribution cycles are making it more challenging for traditional stalwarts like Ivy League endowments and charitable foundations to continue overallocating to VC. VCs are increasingly partnering with LPs like sovereign wealth funds and U.S. public pensions, which can afford to be more patient with distributions. At Kyber Knight Capital, in addition to purely financial LPs, we raised from 50+ CEOs, founders, and execs of top tech startups and Fortune 500 companies. We’re able to add lots of value post-investment as these luminary LPs open their networks to our portfolio companies and help accelerate their GTM. As the composition of funds evolves, one thing remains true: VCs can – and should – support founders beyond just providing capital. #VC #venturecapital #SiliconValley #fundraising #capitalallocation #privatemarkets

Founders have all manner of support to help them get up and running with their businesses. VCs, less so — until now.  Early next year, advisory firm Mountside Ventures is launching Europe’s first VC fundraising accelerator. It’ll take on 15 emerging managers and “help them become better fundraisers”, says Jonathan Hollis, the firm’s managing partner. “It’s not to help investors become better investors; it’s to identify and connect them with relevant LPs.” There are, according to data platform Dealroom, around 2,500 active VCs in Europe; only 275 of those have raised their third fund. #emergingmanagers #investment #VentureCapitalists ##VentureCapitalists #limitedpartners #generalpartners #LPs #GPs

Over the years, we have followed and admired this week’s investor feature: Golub Capital. Golub Capital is a market-leading, direct lender and experienced private credit asset manager. The firm provides reliable, creative, and compelling financing solutions to private equity-backed companies. Its sponsor finance expertise forms the foundation of its #BroadlySyndicatedLoan and #CreditOpportunities investment programs. Other services include #EuropeanLending, #AlternativeSolutions, #PrivateCredit, and #StructuredProducts. Golub Capital also offers adaptable debt and equity funding to venture-backed, expanding B2B SaaS firms through its subsidiary Golub Growth. Since 2013, it has collaborated with over 100 software companies, funding over $10 billion. Some of its portfolio companies include Arctic Wolf, Harri, Filevine, and others. As of January 1, 2024, Golub Capital employed over 875 individuals and managed over $65 billion in capital. The firm has offices in New York, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, and London. Lawrence E. Golub, CEO of Golub Capital, founded the firm in 1994. Since November 2009, he has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors and is also part of the Investment Committee. He is a philanthropist and holds positions on various boards including Harvard Medical School and Columbia Medical School. Previously, he held executive roles at Bankers Trust Company and Wasserstein Perella and began his career at Allen & Company Inc. He's also been involved in public service, serving on the Financial Control Board of the State of New York and as a White House Fellow. Golub strives to make a positive impact on its stakeholders: investors, private equity sponsors, borrowers, employees, and its community. Golub Capital launched the Social Impact Labs to involve upcoming business leaders and scholars from top business schools in advancing the nonprofit ecosystem. Each Lab focuses on enhancing nonprofit effectiveness, especially in underserved areas. Additionally, the initiative backs organizations with creative solutions for social challenges. Within its Credit Opportunities investment strategy segment, Golub recently announced the successful close of its sixth credit opportunities fund, GEMS Fund 6, L.P. (“the Fund” or “Fund 6”), totaling $2 billion. This marks Fund 6 as Golub Capital's largest Credit Opportunities fund to date. The commitments exceeded the fundraising target and originated from a varied group of global institutional and private wealth investors spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.  The Golub Capital Credit Opportunities team concentrates on various “opportunistic” credit strategies linked to the firm's prominent direct lending franchise. These include #stressedloans in the middle market, #secondary credit fund investments, #NAV loans, #CLO liabilities, #preferredstock, and other financial solutions for companies backed by sponsors. Discover more about Golub Capital here: www.golubcapital.com.

🚀 For the last 6 months, we've been working on a new programme to accelerate VCs raising their next fund... 🎙️ I am delighted to announce we are now live! Applications are now open to participate in the first programme for emerging VC managers based in Europe, providing fundraising workshops from fundraising experts, LP connections and world-class mentoring. We kick off the first cohort of 15 - 20 VCs in Q1 2025. 🧐 Fundraising is hard. Hard for founders. Even harder for VCs. There is a vacuum of fundraising support for funds, and there's never been a more difficult time to get one off the ground... So what do participating funds receive? 1️⃣ Warm introductions to Limited Partners and Family Offices 2️⃣ Fundraising templates 3️⃣ 10+ hours of world-class mentoring 4️⃣ Content delivered through workshops with a focus on fundraising 5️⃣ Strong peer community 6️⃣ Opportunity of an LP commit from our network Who are the mentors? 👥 VC mentors include founding partners from some of the most successful VCs in Europe such as LocalGlobe, Dawn Capital, Hoxton Ventures, Partech, Heartcore, Speedinvest, and many more. Collectively, they have raised over $11bn across 80 funds 🤯 👥 LP mentors include investors from some of the most active Limited Partners such as the BBB, KfW, Isomer and many more. Who is the programme for? 🚀 Emerging VCs (broadly those raising Funds I - III) based in Europe 💰 We expect applicants to already be exceptional investors, we will focus on making them exceptional fundraisers. How much does it cost? 💰 👉 It's completely free! With no hidden costs. We want to avoid selection bias and level the playing field for under-represented managers What is the time commitment? ⏲️ 👉 Designed to fit a General Partner's busy schedule, participants will attend at least 3 LP networking events, 6 days of high-impact workshops over a 3-month period and receive 10 hours of mentoring. How to apply? 🎯 👉 You can learn more & apply directly from our website 👉 All those applying will receive access to LP investor lists, fundraising templates and exclusive benefits from our partners. How will we select the funds? ⚖️ With the help of Blue Future Partners, our fund selection partner, we will select VCs with a differentiated strategy, a partner team with deep domain experience, and those that we believe will most likely become the next generation of top-tier funds. 🎗️ I researched and dilligenced all the VC service providers I was recommended, to select partners with a track record of supporting the Emerging Manager community. This programme would not have been possible without the support of: HFL as our fund admin partner 📕 Osborne Clarke as our legal partner 📃 Sage as our technology partner 🧑💻 Ballou as our PR partner 🎤 Leela Capital Regulatory Solutions as our regulatory partner 𝍍 Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers as our accounting partner 🧾

💵📊 Avid Ventures has launched its second early-stage fund closing $87 million. This brings the total capital raised by the company to over $165 million. The Avid Fund II will back exceptional founders building transformative software and fintech companies from Seed to Series B stages. 📈 The VC firm welcomed new institutional investors, including The Mellon Foundation, Hall Capital Partners LLC, Vintage Investment Partners, UJA-Federation of New York, Soka University of America, and CM Wealth Advisors, among others. Returning Fund I investors include Foundry, General Catalyst, and multi-billion dollar philanthropic family offices. It was also backed by leading investors and executives such as Brian Singerman (Partner, Founders Fund), Rob Hayes (Partner, First Round), and Susan Sobbott (former multi-decade American Express leader). 🤖 Read more here: https://shorturl.at/PExRv Addie Lerner Daniel Simon Nicky Goulimis #tech #funding #news #VC #technology #investment #innovation

VCs, it's your turn to accelerate! Mountside Ventures is launching Europe's first VC fundraising accelerator in early 2025, aimed at emerging managers (first to third fund) who want to master the art of fundraising. Unlike founder-focused support, this program directly connects VCs to relevant LPs and helps them refine their pitch and positioning. Mentorship from top-tier LPs and established VCs is part of the deal, and the goal is to level the playing field—especially for underrepresented managers. A rare opportunity to make fundraising smoother and access those hard-to-reach family offices. Wise takeaway for VC in fundraising mode: nobody's paid to speak to you like founders get with VCs. Programs like this one can bridge that gap—apply if you're not getting LP money thrown at you just yet.

🚀 The Evolution of a Successful VC Firm: Demystifying Fundraising 🚀 Ever wonder how a VC firm grows from a small startup to a major industry player? 🤔 Let's break down the stages of fundraising and shed light on this journey for aspiring VCs and curious minds alike! 🔵 Fund I - The Initial Test Fund It all starts here. Most firms kick off with a small fund sourced from the founders’ personal networks. This phase is about proving the concept with lots of smaller investments. 💰 Fund Size: $10 to $50 million 🔵Fund II - Gaining Momentum Success with Fund I? Great! Now it’s time to attract family offices and emerging institutional capital. Reputation starts building through early wins.💰 Fund Size: $50 to $100 million 🔵Fund III - Early Institutionalization Time to get serious! With some exits providing a track record (hello, DPI 🏆), the firm formalizes structures and possibly brings in new partners or promotes within. 💰 Fund Size: $75 to $150 million 🔵Fund IV - Institutional Investors This stage bumps the firm into the big leagues! Established track record? Check. Now attracting foundations, endowments, large multi-family offices (MFOs), and sovereign wealth funds. 💰 Fund Size: $100 to $200 million 🔵Fund V - Fully Institutionalized By now, it's all about large institutions and loyal early supporters. The team works like a well-oiled machine, with succession planning conversations sometimes starting. 💰 Fund Size: $200 million and beyond But remember, bigger isn’t always better. Many firms choose to stay disciplined and stick to a size that suits their strategy. As funds grow, so does #brand awareness, with each exit refining the firm's investment thesis. Curious about VC dynamics? Drop your questions or thoughts below! 👇 #VentureCapital #Fundraising #Startups #VCJourney #Investment #Growth #Innovation