Global venture capital firm Index Ventures has announced $2.3bn (£1.8bn) in new funds, which it will use to supercharge startups and growth companies in the UK and globally.
The capital injection includes an $800m (£625m) venture fund and a $1.5bn (£1.2bn) growth fund. Index Ventures plans to deploy a significant proportion of this in the UK, where it has backed a large number of UK unicorns.
Britain’s growth minister, Lord Livermore, praised the investment, saying: “Boosting private investment into the UK economy is an urgent priority for our growth mission, so I very warmly welcome Index Ventures’ commitment to Britain and their vote of confidence in our VC sector.
“It’s great to see how private investment in the technologies of the future will create thousands of jobs so people across the UK can benefit,” he added.
It comes after the Labour government yesterday announced it plans to launch a national wealth fund with £7.3bn of state funding in a race to “unlock investment” in UK growth industries.
Index Ventures, which has raised a total of $15bn (£11.7bn) since it was founded in 1996, has a number of offices including in San Francisco, London, New York and Tel Aviv. It supports companies from seed stages through to going public. British startups it has previously backed include Deliveroo, Revolut and Bloom & Wild.
The VC firm is bullish on the future for startups. It believes that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), a deep talent pool and proven hyper-growth playbooks are driving big opportunities.
“AI alone will revolutionise virtually every sector of the economy and open up whole industries to venture that have remained virtually untouched,” explained Shardul Shah, partner at Index Ventures. “Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people have worked in hyper-growth startups globally and can transfer those lessons to the next generation of companies.
“We’re energized by the unique opportunities that this historical moment presents and excited to partner with founders to solve the world’s trickiest and most consequential problems,” Shah added.