August's new fund announces initial close, targets €50 million to back European early-stage VC funds (and a few scale-ups)

There's a new VC in town, and it's looking to back European tech startups directly and indirectly through a fund-of-funds strategy.

Ok, fair enough, August is not exactly a new new VC, but the focus on the asset class is definitely a new activity for the Luxembourg-headquartered investment company, which started life in 2009 as a multi-family office and manages roughly €150 million in assets.

August is today announcing the first close of its new fund, dubbed August Europe VC I, which aims to raise €50 million in LP commitments by its final close at some point in 2022. It's already halfway there, and although it may make some direct investments in European tech scale-ups directly from the new fund, the focus is on backing emerging venture capital firm managers across the continent.

Spearheaded by former Sofina investor João Vale de Almeida, August has already backed the likes of early-stage investment firms Stride in the UK, Singular in France and Atlantic Food Labs in Germany. It has also made one co-investment in a European scale-up, it says, without naming the company in question.

All in all, August's objective is to back up to 15 emerging VC managers and make up to 10 co-investments through the new fund, which is backed by a number of families, entrepreneurs and high net-worth individuals who wish to be "involved in European VC through a diversified portfolio of companies" on a long-term basis.

Said de Almeida: "At August we are convinced of the potential of Europe to build category-defining companies and want to play our part, aggregating long-term capital and putting it to work with the most promising companies and VC managers in the continent. We are starting to see the fruits of this strategy, with the majority of our portfolio companies developing at a rapid pace and expanding outside of Europe’s boundaries.”