Top Tier Capital Partners Surpasses Target with Nearly €260 Million Raised for Dedicated European Venture Capital Fund of Funds

Top Tier Capital Partners (TTCP) today announced it has closed on nearly €260 million EU (approximately USD 310 million) in new capital commitments for a dedicated European investment fund, exceeding its target of €250 million. This builds on the nearly $1.2 billion raised for Top Tier Venture Capital IX, Top Tier Venture Velocity Fund 3, and related separate accounts, bringing the total capital committed across the family of funds to $1.5 billion. Focused almost entirely on European funds with some investments in Israel, the Luxembourg-based investment fund seeks to invest broadly across the region, including in niche-focused venture funds and high-growth, expansion-stage technology startups. The fund will also invest into strategic secondaries and co-investments.

One of the fund’s key limited partners is British Business Investments, who made a €100M commitment to the fund in 2019 strategically aimed at addressing the technology funding gap in the UK. Top Tier Capital Partners has been investing in European venture capital since 2005, but this is the firm’s first dedicated fund focused on the region. TTCP believes Europe remains an underserved venture market and represents a significant investment opportunity. As an established Silicon Valley firm coming to Europe, managers in the region value TTCP’s experience and expertise. While many of the Valley’s top firms have opened outposts in Europe in recent years, there are still very few dedicated capital pools for European venture. With successful past investments such as Accel, Creandum, and Medicxi, TTCP is well-established in the region, and is a direct investor in a handful of strategic European companies as well.

“Our first commitment through the Managed Funds Programme, which is designed to increase access to longer-term patient capital for high potential companies, was to Top Tier Capital Partners at first close, in 2019. It is great to see the fund reach final close and continue to support some of the UK’s most innovative sectors, including technology and healthcare,” said Judith Hartley, CEO of British Business Investments.

“We believe strongly in the potential of the European venture capital market,” said Jessica Archibald, Managing Director at Top Tier Capital Partners. “We previously opened an office in London to demonstrate our commitment to the region, and we continue to see high rates of innovation and increasing amounts of overall capital and liquidity.”

Alongside the new capital raised, TTCP has invested in its team and internal resources to support the firm’s growth. In 2019, TTCP opened an office in London to support European investment, and the firm’s Boston office also supports its European investments. Nurturing and acquiring talent is a key part of TTCP’s global strategy, and TTCP is strengthening both its back office and its investment team with opportunistic hires and promotions from within. Sean Engel, an 11-year veteran of the firm who co-leads the Velocity team, was recently promoted to Managing Director. New hires include: Chief Financial Officer Promit Bhattacharya, who previously led finance and operations at multi-billion dollar funds including SVB Capital, WestBridge Capital, and Hall Capital Partners; previously Managing Director with Capstone Partners, Brian DeFee was hired as Director of Corporate Development EMEA, to lead business development in Europe; Janice Kary, Director of Investor Services, joined TTCP after running IR at Intellectual Ventures; Julia Gonzalez Sanders, VP Legal, was previously a Senior Associate at Orrick, Herrington, & Suttcliffe, LLP; Controller Erica Suzuki launched her career at Deloitte and spent the last decade at Stanford University; and Sunny Gill, VP Talent, who helped recruit most of this team.

“The European fund is a strategic part of our global investment strategy and part of the overall maturation of the business from a partner-driven firm to an investment institution. It also represents a larger shift in the market,” said David York, Managing Director at Top Tier Capital Partners. “We’re looking forward to deepening our partnerships in Europe and Israel, which will also help inform our Velocity investing outside of the U.S.”

With investments in more than 350 funds worldwide and a database of more than 9500 companies, TTCP is uniquely positioned to offer reliable data-driven insights into the innovation private market. The firm’s vast amount of data gathered over two decades gives TTCP highly reliable pattern recognition, allowing it to triangulate trends and understand GP blind spots. The firm’s success shows in its distributions as well—in 2020, TTCP’s portfolio saw 36 IPOs and returned more than $800M to investors.<sup>[1]

[1]</sup> Distributions include portfolio companies invested into by the TTCP’s portfolio of fund managers. Not all IPOs are profitable. The positions can be acquired at a price that is less than the price at which TTCP and/or the underlying portfolio fund purchased its interest for the funds they manage. The information is being presented to reflect TTCP’s ability to select investments that are likely to be acquisition targets and not to reflect any positive investment experience. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

To learn more, visit the redesigned website at https://ttcp.com/.

About Top Tier Capital Partners

Top Tier Capital Partners, LLC is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco specializing in managing niche-focused funds of funds. Leveraging an extensive global network and two decades of experience, including its predecessor firm Paul Capital, Top Tier Capital Partners makes primary and secondary investments in venture capital funds and co-investments in select portfolio companies. Whether entrepreneurs sell to businesses, consumers or both, Top Tier Capital Partners offers a powerful network and data-driven support to an impressive set of diverse portfolio companies, primarily in the software and technology sectors. With nearly $6 billion in capital commitments since 2002 invested, Top Tier Capital Partners was built to spot emerging trends early, develop longstanding partnerships, and deliver returns. Follow us @TTCP_SF and on LinkedIn.

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