About a decade ago, a group of ex-Rocket Internet players launched a venture capital firm. The firm was dubbed Project A Ventures, and since its launch, it has invested in some of Europe’sEurope’s most well-known tech companies.
Project A Ventures has invested in WorldRemit, Spryker, sennder, Trade Republic, Voi, and Kry.
The Berlin-based VC recently closed its fourth funding round at $375 million, its largest so far.
This funding round increases the company’s assets to a total of $1 billion.
In a statement released by Uwe Horstmann, Project A’sA’s General Partner and Co-founder, he said:
“The closing of our fourth fund is a major milestone in our company history as it marks the 10th anniversary of Project A successfully supporting founders all over Europe…We are continuing to expand our operational VC model to have our functional experts directly support our portfolio companies in scaling their business and their technology.”
Project A invests in B2C and B2B startups from pre-seed through Series A, with an emphasis on fintech, commerce, enterprise software, data infrastructure, supply chains, and climate technologies.
Horstmann claims that the VC involves over 140 practical experts who support the companies in its portfolio.
Project A managed to build an impressive portfolio of 11 private equity co-investments.
Because of this, the VC has decided to develop its private equity co-investment operations by investing $80 million in Private Equity contracts.
The contracts the company is aiming for will be in the ”growth” area of the market.
Horstmann had this to say when questioned by TechCrunch about the imminent economic slump and how Project A’sA’s LP backers were feeling about it:
“It varies between investors, of course, but I’d say most of our investors were expecting this at some point. The big institutional investors from, e.g., the US are also somewhat experienced in that they’ve been around for quite a while.”
He added that he and his team needed to prepare their portfolio for a potentially difficult time. He also said it was a “great time” for new investments.
Horstmann finished by saying,
“The fundamental positive trend in the European ecosystem is intact, and we do investments with a 6-10 year time period in mind anyway.”
When asked about the future of the VC, Horstmann stated that the company would keep two strategies in place:
- Early-stage venture (pre-seed to Series A) and
- Private equity co-investments.
He added that both were methods suggested by their full-time functional expert staff. Such teams are uncommon in Europe.
He further noted that the fund could have been much larger, but he and his team felt the size was right for them.
This fund would allow them to build an impressive portfolio in different parts of Europe and across different industries and verticals.
Image by Nattanan Kanchanaprat from Pixabay