The Spanish venture capital firm Kfund raised $75 million for the funding of tech projects.
The company announced Monday (17 June) the new fund, saying it would support founders working in Europe “with foundational technology” defined as “data play,” “platform layers,” or artificial intelligence (AI).
Kfund stated that “with a target of EUR70m, we will continue to make investments in southern Europe alongside the most promising founders to help them lay the groundwork for future growth. Our experience as founders and executives in technology companies and our unique ability to support them in the region from pre-seed through to Series B, thanks to our family of funds, will allow us to do this.”
The company notes that as the market matures successful companies tend to focus more on B2B than consumers.
In the U.K. Germany and France, between 2012 and 2017, only 28% of unicorns – startups valued at over $1 billion – were “tech enabled” B2B companies. In the next five years, this figure grew to 60%.
Kfund’s announcement follows news earlier this week that tech investments were experiencing a turnaround following a long downturn.
The Financial Times (FT), in a report, notes that private tech investors Creandum have unveiled a $544-million fund. They have invested in Klarna, Spotify, and other companies. Creandum’s $544 million fund was created “in record time,” according to general partner Carl Fritjofsson.
He said that there was a dramatic shift in the industry’s attitude, appetite, and activity.
Last year, the investment in Europe’s tech sector dropped dramatically. In its State of European Tech report, published in late 2023, British venture capital firm Atomico predicted that the funds raised by Europe’s tech startups in 2023 would be around $45 billion. This compares to $82 billion in 2022.
PYMNTS has recently examined how AI is assisting VC firms in making investment decisions. This is done by quickly analyzing massive data on startups and the market trends.
The founder and managing partner at growth equity firm Alpha Partners and Steve Brotman told PYMNTS that AI is useful in venture capital because it allows humans to be more precise and weed out the noise.
He added: “With AI, we are able to analyze market trends, startup metrics, and other crucial data points at a speed and scale that is simply unattainable by a team of analysts alone.” “This improves efficiency, and fundamentally enhances our ability to make informed strategic decisions by providing a level of insight into potential investment that was previously unimaginable.”