European and US venture funds hit a high note

Venture capital funds are on track to better the fundraising mark set in 2011, new findings show.

Solid returns: both US and European VC funds have outperformed 2011 statistics

Solid returns: both US and European VC funds have outperformed 2011 statistics

Date: 11 July 2012

Article: News

Research from Dow Jones LP Source finds that, at the half-year mark, European and US venture capital funds collectively raised $15.3 billion (£9.9 billion).
 
In Europe 27 venture funds raised $2.3 billion during the first six months of 2012, a 26 per cent increase, while in the US 82 funds garnered $13 billion, up 31 per cent.
 
The findings from Dow Jones also show that early-stage funds attracted most of the capital, attracting $1.5 billion from 17 funds, a 34 per cent rise in capital committed over the same period in 2011.
 
Later stage funds also performed well with $689 million raised by nine multi-stage funds, slightly more than the $681 million raised during the examined period in 2011.

Dow Jones says that one debenture fund raised $79 million in the beginning of 2012, and that later-stage funds did not hold any closings, a trend it says is not uncommon in Europe.
 
In the US, 12 per cent more funds completed closings while multi-stage funds proved most popular with limited partners.
 
Despite early-stage funds raising $3.1 billion in the US, a big rise on the $1.3 billion raised during the same period in 2011, the findings noted a 28 per cent decline in the total secured by late-stage funds.

European quarterly fundraising ($M)
Fund category Q1 2011 Q2 2011 Q3 2011 Q4 2011 Total Q1 2012 Q2 2012 Total
Count of closings 12 15 8 16 51 14 13 27
Amount closed ($M) 888.37 930.26 576.90 1,477.69 3,873.22 1,082.38 1,214.66 2,297.04

Source: Dow Jones LP Source
 
Zoran Basich, editor of Dow Jones VentureWire, comments, 'Despite the industry's lacklustre returns in recent years, there's still lots of interest in funds that have good track records or are well situated to take advantage of broad consumer technology trends.

'We're seeing that reflected in the healthy fundraising numbers.'

US quarterly fundraising ($M)
Fund category Q1 2011 Q2 2011 Q3 2011 Q4 2011 Total Q1 2012 Q2 2012 Total
Count of closings 35 39 44 48 166 48 38 86
Amount closed ($M) 6,679.66 3,220.57 2,407.72 6,522.84 18,830.79 6,322.36 6,690.33 13,012.69

Source: Dow Jones LP Source