Europe’s Target Global raises new €120M early-stage fund

Target Global, the pan-European venture capital firm headquartered in Berlin, has raised a new €120 million early-stage fund, following what it claims was only 3 months of fundraising.

Dubbed “Early Stage Fund II”, the new vehicle will see the firm continue to back early-stage tech companies across Europe and Israel, leading and co-leading seed and Series A rounds. It also has a later-stage growth fund and a dedicated mobility fund, and in combination Target Global currently has over €800 million in assets under management.

“Our ‘Early Stage Fund II’ will pretty much follow the same strategy as our ‘Early Stage Fund I’; same team, same size, same investment strategy,” Shmuel Chafets, General Partner and Vice-Chairman at Target Global, tells TechCrunch.

“We had long debates around fund size, and despite it being oversubscribed, we opted to keep it at the original €120 million, which we believe is optimal for European early-stage at the moment and will also us to both deliver venture returns to LPs and give our founders the time and attention that early stage companies need”.

To that end, Target Global — which has a 50-person team across offices in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, Moscow and Barcelona — says it will continue to focus on startups that are disrupting “truly European, trillion-Euro industries,” citing retail, financial services, food, mobility, healthcare, and manufacturing organizations, and the application of technologies such as SaaS, online marketplaces and e-commerce, and AI.

“Category leaders” that the VC has already backed include Auto1, Delivery Hero, Wefox, TravelPerk, and Rapyd.

“We like to invest in companies that target huge markets and with great teams that have relevant experience for the problem they are solving and that show durability,” adds Chafets. “It is very rare to have a team in the pre-A stage that really has all the answers around product-market-fit and technology. Most companies go through good and bad times, we try to find the founders that would go the distance”.

Meanwhile, Target Global is also announcing that Dr Ricardo Schäfer has been appointed as a new partner for Early-Stage Fund II. He’ll be leading the firm’s early-stage investments in its London office. Described as a serial angel investor and an early backer of Revolut, Schäfer was most recently part of Seedcamp’s investment team, as well as a Venture Partner with Cherry Ventures.

“We are happy to strengthen our London team with such an experienced and successful early-stage investor,” says Alex Frolov, General Partner and CEO at Target Global, in a statement. “With his focus on fintech and proptech, and a hands-on, entrepreneurial approach, we feel that it’s an excellent match both for our Target Global investment strategy and our culture”.