KPN Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of KPN, has invested in the final close of the third early-stage investment fund of Cambridge, UK based IQ Capital, an independent fund manager focused on investments into UK technology companies with unique knowhow or strong IP and primarily originating from the Cambridge innovation ecosystem.
Today, there are some 5,900 technologies companies in Cambridge, including 12 companies valued over a billion dollars (i.e. ARM, Autonomy and Aveva), and circa 63,000 people working in technology firms. Through twenty years of investing, IQ Capital has built very strong connections with all key components of the Cambridge ecosystem, from professors, research labs, successful entrepreneurs and investors to young scientists and key opinion leaders within the tech industry. The fund size amounts to $175 million from which they aim to invest across six domains: Data Analytics, FinTech, Human Machine Interface, Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber Security and High Performance Engineering.
Since its inception in June 2018, the fund has made already 12 investments in for example Concirrus, Wluper, Iotic Labs and CCS.
This is KPN Ventures’ fifth investment in a European early-stage fund, focusing on innovative technology companies spinning out of university research and innovation hubs. Previously, KPN Ventures invested in Enschede-based Cottonwood Technology Fund, Paris-based PSL Innovation Fund, Leuven-based imec.xpand and Lisbon-based Armilar TechTransfer Fund. Through these investments, KPN Ventures aims to create early access to new technology partners, and build partnerships to experiment, improve and expand its offerings to customers.
The full press release on IQ Capital’s closing of the new fund can be accessed here.
IQ Capital is a venture capital firm, based between Cambridge and London, that invests in ‘deep-tech’ across sectors including machine learning, AI, robotics, and advanced engineering and materials, and data-focused propositions based on disruptive algorithms. All of the firm’s portfolio companies are capable of dominating their respective markets on a global scale. Initial investments range from £300k to £5m, with capacity for follow-on investment up to £10-15m. The IQ Capital team has achieved over 20 exits to date, to companies including Oracle, Google, Apple, Huawei, and Facebook, and several IPOs. IQ Capital has led 28 investments over the last three years. The firm is currently investing at seed and Series A stage from its third venture fund. In July 2019, IQ Capital launched its Growth Opportunities Fund, providing the capital to scale companies through to exit. For more information, please visit www.iqcapital.vc.
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