Nauta Capital closes one of Europe's biggest B2B focused-funds to invest €190M in early-stage software companies

- Nauta's fifth fund has exceeded the firm's €150M target and becomes one of Europe's largest early-stage funds specialising in B2B software 

- Backing companies from Seed and Series A, Nauta has already invested in 11 companies in verticals such as Fintech, Insurtech, Retailtech, and Open Source, among others, under the new fund  

- Nauta's investment interests include SaaS solutions with strong network effects, vertically focused enterprise tech and companies leveraging deep-tech applications to solve large enterprise challenges 

LONDON and BARCELONA, Spain and BERLIN, Nov. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nauta Capital, the pan-European Venture Capital firm investing in capital-efficient B2B software companies, has today announced the final close of its oversubscribed fifth fund at €190M.  

With a €120M first closed announced in 2020 - at the height of global pandemic - the fund's final close brings the firm's assets under management to €550+M, making Nauta one of Europe's largest venture capital firms specialising in B2B startups.  

Simultaneously fundraising and investing, Nauta has invested in 11 companies across Europe from the new fund since its launch.  

Commenting on the news, Carles Ferrer, Nauta's London-based General Partner, said "It has been a fast-moving year for us as a team – we were neck-deep closing our fund from existing and new Limited Partners, while at the same time meeting and investing in more companies than ever before. And this was all done virtually. The experience certainly gave us a new perspective in how we related to the founders and evaluated concepts while empowering our team to invest in even more game-changing verticals and companies."  

The companies invested from the new fund range from SaaS purchase and management (Cledara), open source platform (Nhost), and app analytics and management platform (Appfollow)) to solutions democratising employee wellbeing (ifeel), embedded insurance for SMEs (insureQ), and b2b last-mile delivery company (Gophr), among others.  

"We're proud to have surpassed our target having now closed at €190M, making it our biggest fund to date and one of Europe's largest B2B funds. With most of our existing LPs from our vintage funds committing again, we are grateful for their continued trust in us and our investment strategy," added Carles.  

Nauta has attracted a wide range of Limited Partners across Europe, Asia, and the Americas in their new fund. Accordingly, the vast majority of Limited Partners joining the fund are private institutions with strategic interest in fund's B2B focus as well as Family Offices with links to corporations aligned with the fund's investment thesis. Among these are Netherlands based European Family Office Merifin Capital and the private markets division of the Spain based giant BBVA Asset Management.  

The fund has also had backing from leading investors such as British Patient Capital, ICO, the European Investment Fund, ICF, and Germany-based KfW Capital.  

As a sector-agnostic B2B investor, Nauta's main areas of interest include SaaS solutions with strong network effects, vertically focused enterprise tech transforming large industries as well as those leveraging deep-tech applications to solve challenges faced by large enterprises. Investing from late seed and Series A, typically Nauta invests between €1M - 5M initially, with the ability to follow on at later stages.  

Nauta Capital has had a successful year leading up to the fund's final close with two portfolio exits in the last 8 months. The VC firm exited from Brandwatch, a global leader in digital consumer intelligence, which was acquired by Cision for $450M earlier in 2021, and from Holded which was acquired by Visma group.  

As part of the new fund, the VC firm will invest £100-£250K in 16 pre-seed deeptech companies through its recently launched Nauta Labs initiative. These 16 smaller investments will be in addition to the approximately 35 companies Nauta plans to invest in from its new fund.  

With a team distributed across London, Barcelona, and Berlin, Nauta Capital has doubled its team to 24 in the last three years.  

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