Earlybird Venture Capital
| Private partnership | |
| Industry | Venture capital |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Berlin, Germany |
| Products | Venture capital, Growth capital |
| Total assets | $1 billion |
| Website | www.earlybird.com |
Earlybird is a European venture investment firm. It manages around US$1 billion[1] in assets for an international investor base and is currently in its fourth fund generation, focusing mainly on the technology and health technology sectors. The firm is one of the largest European venture and growth capital investors and the largest outside of the UK.
History
Earlybird was founded in 1997[2] by the investment partners Hendrik Brandis, Christian Nagel, Roland Manger and Rolf Mathies. The firm has offices in Berlin, Munich and Istanbul.
Earlybird moved its headquarters from Hamburg to Berlin in 2012[3] in support of the expanding innovative network of startups in the German capital.[4] It closed its latest fund of €150M in 2012 which will focus on early-stage investments in disruptive global consumer and enterprise businesses across Europe.[5]
In 2012, Earlybird brought on[6] Silicon Valley based Konstantin Guericke, the co-founder of LinkedIn and former CEO of jaxtr, as a venture partner in order to facilitate the global expansion of Earlybird’s portfolio companies.[7]
In 2013, Earlybird announced a new fund targeting Turkey and CEE regions, managed by a team of four partners: Dan Lupu, Roland Manger, Cem Sertoglu and Evren Ucok.[8]
Investment philosophy
Earlybird’s main investment philosophy is to focus on truly disruptive, non-linear companies that disrupt large markets with a strong product or technology at their heart. Earlybird is particularly interested in companies that build engagement or network effects and that reach proof points and scalability with a high degree of capital efficiency. Earlybird looks for investment opportunities with European DNA but global ambitions.[9]
Earlybird's investments cover multiple stages of a company's investment needs, ranging from early-stage to expansionary and growth stages with investment sizes between €200k and €20M.[10]
Earlybird Health Tech Fund
The Earlybird Health Tech Fund is oriented towards funding innovative medical technology companies with experienced entrepreneurial teams and products with an existing clinical proof-of-concept and a defined regulatory pathway. The investment focus is on therapeutic medical device companies, diagnostic medical device companies, web-enabled and scalable health services, as well as health IT services.
Earlybird Digital East Fund
The Earlybird Digital East Fund is focused on providing early stage equity capital to high-potential technology companies in Turkey and Central & Eastern Europe. The key interest areas of the fund are Consumer Internet, Enterprise Software and Tech-Enabled Services.
Current portfolio
Since its inception in 1997, Earlybird has invested in close to 100 companies and its portfolio currently consists of 24 companies. Some of these are:
Tech[11]
|
|
Health tech[12]
- EBS Technologies
- Miracor
- Hemoteq
Past investments
Earlybird has had considerable success with its three fund generations to date, evidenced by six large IPOs across four different stock exchanges[13] and 14 trade sales.[14]
IPOs
- Interhyp, Tipp24 und Wilex listed on the Prime Standard, Frankfurt
- Esmertec listed on Swiss Exchange, Zurich
- Entelos listed on the London Stock Exchange
- NoemaLife listed on the Borsa Italiana, Milan
Trade sales
|
|