Funding opportunity
Balderton Capital has raised $430 million in the first closing for its new fund. This is the firm’s fourth fund, having raised $550 million in December 2006, $375 million in July 2004 and $500 million in May 2000.
London-based Balderton now manages approximately $1.8 billion in committed venture capital, making it one of the largest VC firms outside the US. Since it started business in 2000, Balderton has invested in over 80 companies across a wide variety of technology sectors in Europe, the US and China. Notable investments include the social networking site bebo, which was sold to AOL for $850 million, the UK-based online betting exchange betfair, Codemasters, a video games publisher, the open-source software database business MySQL, sold to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion, and the European broadcaster Setanta Sports.
“This is a great start for the year for Balderton in what is clearly a difficult economic environment,” said Barry Maloney, General Partner. “Our first fund was completed at the height of the dot com bust and we went on to invest in some of the strongest companies in our portfolio today. Each economic cycle provides opportunities for the best entrepreneurs and we are excited to be able to invest in tomorrow’s success stories in this our fourth fund.”
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