The recent edition of the Go4Equity Monthly Bulletin reports about several huge later stage investments in Europe in July. Noteworthy were two investments in hardware companies. The authors of the bulletin think that these investments could signalise the end of the “semiconductor stigma”.
Every month the Go4Venture Advisers’ European Venture & Growth Equity Market Monthly Bulletin reports about huge financing rounds in Europe. July 2013 was the largest month ever on record, in part due to the biggest ever deal, a whopping €300+ million late stage financing for Amsterdam-based Mobileye, a car driving automation technology company originally from Israel. Interestingly, these results are in line with what is happening in the US as reported in the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), which shows a 12% value increase of cumulative investments to June 2013 compared to the same period last year. This suggests that European venture is actually growing much faster than the US – obviously from a much lower base (the US market is approximately 4x to 5x larger).
The market in July was pulled by late stage transactions, confirming the inverted nature of European venture now dominated by growth equity plays. From a sector standpoint, internet was again the champion in July, followed by software and somewhat more surprisingly hardware, including two semiconductor investments (Crocus Technology and Movidius). The creeping up of hardware plays makes the research team think that we are coming to the end of the semiconductor stigma as investors slowly realise that the Lapsing of Moore's Law opens up opportunity in chip design and that Micro- and NanoElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS and NEMS) innovations open up brand new, high volume markets (such as movement detection). It also reflects the growing risk appetite of investors, both by VC fund survivors spurred by their growing success in a decimated VC landscape (such as Idinvest in the case of Crocus or DFJ Esprit for Movidius), and opportunistic institutional investors or corporates which are bursting with cash and ambition (as in the case of Robert Bosch Venture Capital for Movidius).
The bulletin can be downloaded for free at the website of Go4Equity.
0Comments
Please login or sign up to comment.
Commenting guidelines