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The total number and value of European Series A rounds led by the 20 most active lead VCs has roughly doubled between 2014-2018.
The Journey to Series A in Europe - Part 2
The Series A Landscape in Europe 2014-2018
Fundraising benchmarks for founders of early-stage companies
in partnership with
1. The total number and value of European Series A rounds led by the 20 most active lead VCs
has roughly doubled between 2014-2018.
2. New ($7-15m) and Mega (>$15m) Series A have become notably more common in Europe
relative to Old ($4-7m) Series A, across most geographies and categories.
3. The 5-year data offers founders (and their Seed investors) clear guidance on the profile of
candidate VCs to lead their Series A, based on round size, geography, and category.
4. London is the capital of lead VCs in European Series A as home to at least half of them.
5. There are no (!) US-based VCs among the 20 most active lead VCs in European Series A...
What you need to know
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Rationale & Methodology
1. 9 months ago we published Part 1 of The Journey to Series A in Europe, offering actionable
benchmarks on Seed funding - round sizes, conversion rates and time to Series A, and more.
2. That analysis was based on a systematic relabelling of rounds by their size to enable reliable
like-for-like comparisons.
3. This time we endeavoured to derive actionable benchmarks and historic VC profiles
to inform founders and investors about the dynamics of the European Series A landscape.
4. This was done based on a dataset of 257 thoroughly validated and qualified Series A rounds,
led by the most active lead VCs in Europe between 2014-2018 (“the dataset”).
Why have we created this analysis?
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1. We focused on VCs who led Series A rounds, rather than just participated in them, because
securing the lead investor is typically the primary fundraising priority for founders.
2. We focused on the 20 most active lead VCs in European Series A because it is a sizeable
sample that covers about a third of the initial qualified dataset, and since it would’ve been
impracticable to directly engage with more VCs on a round-by-round basis.
3. This analysis isn’t meant to sugg