Lakestar announce Lakestar II, a new €350 million fund focused on early-stage investments in Europe

Lakestar, an investor in Spotify, Klarna, Skype and King, are set to fund Europe's next wave of startups, with a new €350 million fund focused on early-stage investments in Europe.

Today, Lakestar will announce their new fund, Lakestar II. Coming in at €350 million, the fund is one of the largest fund-raises from a European venture capital firm this year. To put its size into perspective, it comes in just behind Index's new €400 million fund. With €2 billion in new funds announced in total in Q2, it's certainly a sizeable amount, especially when it will be focused on early-stage investments. It's also a significant increase on their first fund, which was €135 million.

Although it is an early-stage fund, which typically means seed and Series A, founder Klaus Hommels is keen for it to remain stage-agnostic, telling Business Insider:

"We can do €500,000 , but we can also do €45 million as an investment."

The fund will largely be focused on Europe, and on B2C, however the firm will also make investments elsewhere, both in geography and business models. Examples of previous notable European investments from Lakestar and their general partners include Spotify, Skype, King and Klarna. They've also invested in Facebook and Airbnb in the US.

For further context, the full Business Insider interview with Klaus Hommels can be read here, while The New York Times reports on the new fund as 'Big investors are finding ripe startup targets in Europe'.

**Read more:**

An interview with Pawel Chudzinski of Point Nine Capital, the SaaS-focused early-stage VC from Berlin

European VC firms raised more than €2 billion in Q2 2015, an increase of 30% compared to last year

VC funding in Croatia and Southeast Europe: A gaping hole that’s slowly being filled

New London VC Felix Capital gets $120m to back ‘digital lifestyle’ startups

Harry Briggs leaves Balderton Capital after 6 years to join a new VC fund launching in September

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