LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Phoenix Court Group, the early stage European venture capital investor, today introduces $500m in new funds to help founders and their teams in the world’s third largest innovation ecosystem build world-class tech businesses, from seed stage to the public markets. This marks the transition of Phoenix Court Group into a lifestage tech investor, having established a global reputation for investing in startups at seed stage that go on to become unicorns through LocalGlobe and Latitude. 1
Phoenix Court Group now comprises four distinct funds, each aimed at a particular stage of the market: LocalGlobe focused on the pre-seed and seed stage, Latitude focused at the breakout and early growth stage and the new funds, Solar and Basecamp - which were previously internally funded and will now begin to be institutionalised. Solar is Phoenix Court Group’s scale-up fund focussed on supporting tech businesses on their journey from the private to the public markets, and beyond. Basecamp is a diverse community of 50+ emerging early stage funds, angels and solo GPs across Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, India, Israel and the US.
The new funds mean that a further $500m will be invested in the opportunity in New Palo Alto - an area within a four-hour train journey of central London - which has moved in the last 5-10 years from being seen as a frontier market for the world’s best investors, to the most successful innovation ecosystem globally after the Bay Area and Beijing, producing world-class science and technology companies. Solar expands Phoenix Court’s commitment to addressing the underinvestment in funding at the breakout and scale-up stages, while Basecamp continues to demonstrate, alongside the Newton Venture Program, Phoenix Court’s mission to support the next generation of great investment businesses, while seeking to increase the diversity of the venture capital investment sector.
Saul Klein, co-founder of Phoenix Court Group: “Despite being the third best producer of high growth private companies globally, this geography is still underserved by investors, especially at the breakout and scale-up stages. Not only is there an acute funding gap at the scale-up stage here, less than 20% of the capital invested at that stage is domestic, so when companies in our region are acquired or move to the public markets, UK pensioners and savers miss out, while their Canadian, Australian and Singaporean equivalents benefit.”
“We have a 10 year view on investing and given the access, insight and engagement that we have through our LocalGlobe, Latitude, Solar and Basecamp funds, we continue to think that this is a great place to build innovative companies and also pioneer a new era of ethical innovation. We’re not building the next Palo Alto, it’s a different one.”
In expanding the fund family, Phoenix Court Group is also sharing more details around Phoenix Court Works, its foundation which supports organisations in the London neighbourhood of Somers Town, as well as more broadly in Camden, and New Palo Alto. Phoenix Court Works is funded through the allocation of 10% of profits from Phoenix Court Group’s management company and 2% of carry from all the funds. Phoenix Court Works has supported 23 organisations to date, focused on three core themes of health and wellbeing, education and inclusion, climate and the environment.
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