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Balderton Capital closes new $375M fund to invest in Series A-stage European startups

More VC money sloshing around Europe: In what was probably one of the worst kept secrets in European VC, London-based Balderton Capital is announcing a new $375 million fund. I understand that it actually closed earlier this year, however, and I’m told has already been used to make ten investments.

In fact, although the firm now has a decent amount of new capital to deploy, this is really business as usual for Balderton. The new fund — the firm’s sixth — will target startups anywhere in Europe at mostly Series A stage, with the occasional seed deal or Series B investment, in addition to follow ons.

In terms of LPs, the VC isn’t disclosing any individual names, including whether or not any European Investment Fund (EIF) or taxpayer-funded British Business Bank money made it into the fund (Update: The EIF has confirmed to Business Insider it is a backer of Balderton’s new fund). It simply says that the latest fund has been raised from new and existing investors from Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The inclusion of a small number of Asia-based LPs differs from its previous fund, while the Europe and U.S. portion is split 60/40. [ Tech Crunch ]

"The Wrong Kind of Money". To much of the world the venture capital ecosystem is kind of an economic miracle.

You decide to start a company. Maybe you sketch out on a napkin what it could look like. Maybe you put together a slide deck about the promise. And if you’re lucky, you are able to sell stock in a company that didn’t exist the day before for millions of dollars.

It de-risks starting a company, because you can still get paid, you can hire, you can have resources to grow, and you have a year or so of runway to try. [ Pando ]

Victoria Beckham Raises $40 Million in Private Equity Investment

Victoria Beckham (the luxury empire, not the woman) is about to get a whole lot bigger.

After years of speculation that her fast-growing namesake fashion brand was a prime takeover target, it was announced on Monday that Ms. Beckham had received £30 million, or almost $40 million, from the private equity firm Neo Investment Partners in exchange for an undisclosed stake in the business.

Ms. Beckham, who founded her line in 2008 alongside her husband David Beckham and the former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller, said that she was “thrilled” to have found a partner in Neo, which is run by the former Goldman Sachs banker David Belhassen. [ NY Times ]

The Nordic Web launches an Angel fund to find the region’s under-the-radar startups

The Nordic Web, a research and analysis company which specialises in covering data on tech companies emerging out of the Nordic region, has started a new Angel fund. The fund will invest across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Founder Neil Murray says ‘The Nordic Web Angel Fund’ plans to invest in 10-15 Nordic startups over the next 12 months. He claims this would make it one of the most active funds in the region. [ Tech Crunch ]

Podcast : How LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman would fix social media

Humans frequently say insulting things to one another, and technology can’t “solve” that. But tech companies can and should find ways to make their platforms healthier and more positive, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman says.

“These are all private businesses, and you can say, ‘Look, if this is your business, you can take it elsewhere,’” Hoffman said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. “That happens in hotels, happens in online stuff. Articulate something around that! ‘This is the way we articulate our opposition to hate speech and hatred: We enable discussion, but we don’t enable oppression of violence.’”
[ Recode ]

Justin Caldbeck's comeback tour: Turning sexual harassment into lemonade

For the last week, I’ve intended to write something about the “comeback” of Justin Caldbeck. Everytime, I feel like I need a hazmat suit in order to even start to get into it.

When Caldbeck’s victims came forward, with three of them bravely going on the record first, and more following, it was a selfless act of wanting to protect other women in the future... [ Pando ]

Techstars Ventures to raise $400 mln venture capital fund

Techstars Ventures is raising a $400 million venture capital fund, according to a filing with the SEC. The fund, Techstars Ventures 2017, has yet to report a first close. The firm, the venture capital arm of the Techstars accelerator, has $265 million under management and is presently investing out of a $150 million third fund, according to its website. It invests in accelerator companies and companies built by accelerator alumni. [ PEHub ]

This Guy Makes Money Off Your Cigarette Butts and Flip-Flops

Szaky, the founder of TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based garbage startup, has built a $24 million business around the belief that everything is recyclable. He’s convinced some of the world’s largest brands and retailers, including Procter & Gamble Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Office Depot Inc., that there’s value in spending to keep garbage out of landfills.

Now he’s seeking millions to help fund a bigger mission: making trash the star of a circular economy, where re-use is the norm. Inspired by the glass milk-bottle porch deliveries of yesteryear, he’s creating a durable consumer-recycling system. Think shampoo encased in gleaming stainless-steel capsules, ice cream packaged in thermos-like containers, coffee sealed in metal pods instead of plastic — all the packages to be carted off, sanitized, deconstructed and used again. [ Bloomberg ]

A Company You've Never Heard Of Became Bigger Then Facebook Last Week

A tech company barely known in the western world briefly eclipsed Facebook as one of the top five largest corporations in the world. Tencent, a 19-year-old company which now offers games and a WeChat messaging service, hit a market capitalisation value of $529.9 billion last week, overtaking its Silicon Valley counterpart at $528.5 billion.

Around 750 million Chinese internet users are flocking to online games, messaging apps and online shopping, propelling Tencent and Alibaba, another Chinese company, towards the top table of public listings. Tenent's new landmark makes it the first company to China to enter the so-called "half-a-trillion club". [ Independent ]

Snap’s Evan Spiegel is clinging to billionaire status by his fingernails

It’s hard to fault someone for being barely a billionaire — a self-made one at that, who happens to be just 27 years old. Still, owing to the performance of Snap Inc.’s performance since its March IPO, such is the position of its cofounder and CEO, Evan Spiegel.

Spiegel was worth more than three times that amount just nine months ago, when the company made its splashy debut. Hailed initially as a triumph, Snap’s shares opened their first trading day at $24, soaring 41 percent out of the gate. Their price quickly began drifting south, however, as Instagram began more aggressively replicating the features that made Snapchat so popular. And today its shares trade at just less than $13 each, giving the company a market cap of $15.6 billion, down from a peak valuation of $31 billion. [ TechCrunch ]

Billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman says his masters in philosophy has helped him more than an MBA

When students begin graduate studies in philosophy, they're typically looking to explore the essence of existence — and suffice it to say, most are not getting on a path to riches.

But one of Silicon Valley's most influential billionaires, LinkedIn founder and Greylock Partners investor Reid Hoffman, received his masters degree in philosophy from Oxford in 1993. He was originally planning to go into academia, but decided that his desire to do nothing less than change the world would be more likely in the world of tech. That's not to say, however, that he abandoned the lessons he learned. [ Business Insider ]