Most active venture-capital market investors in Europe as of Q2 2019

Venture capital investors specialize in identifying and investing in start-ups and small businesses that have the potential for long-term growth. These investment companies often focus on companies that are either innovating a current market or in fact creating a new market segment. These companies not only invest with money but will also offer technical or managerial support. VC investment firms either take a broad approach to companies in which they invest in or will specialize in a specific technology. In 2017, the Deep tech sector and the Fintech industry where the leading sectors for VC investments in Europe.

Venture capital exits

Venture capital investors do not only make money by holding shares in a company. Venture capital exits are when an investor decides they want to sell off part or all their stake held in a company. In some cases, this is because they are writing off a bad investment or often because they want to create more capital for further investment.

There are unicorns in Europe

Occasionally a venture capital firm gets their investment correct. When a privately held start-up company reaches a valuation of over one billion U.S dollars they become a unicorn. VC investment companies such as Accel Partners have become specialists in creating unicorns with the company boasting the most of these magical creatures held in portfolio as of 2018. Location wise, the United Kingdom leads in the number of unicorns created.