Valar Ventures

Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital,[2] Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Union Square in New York City.[3] The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations.

Valar Ventures
Founded2012[1]
FounderAndrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald, Peter Thiel
HeadquartersNew York City, New York, United States
Websitevalar.com

Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald are the managing partners of the firm.

Investments

Valar was notably the first venture fund to invest in Xero. The fund made its initial investment in Xero in October 2010 at a valuation of approximately $98 million.[4] Since then, the firm has spearheaded successive rounds of investment in the company[5] and Xero's market cap has grown to more than $4 billion as of February 2014.[6]

Valar also led TransferWise's Series A and Series B financing rounds in January 2013 and April 2014, respectively. Following Valar's investment, Andreessen Horowitz led TransferWise's Series C[7] and Baillie Gifford led the company's Series D in 2016 at a $1.1 billion valuation.

Both Xero and TransferWise were investments out of Valar's $100M first fund, which was a series of special purpose vehicles, including a $32 million New Zealand specific fund.[8] From its two funds, Valar has led investments in several startups including Xero, TransferWise, Breather, Number26, EyeEm, Even, Lystable, Granify, Homie, TradeIt, Vend, Descomplica, Oppa and Dinda.

In 2016, N26 received €10 million in a series A round by Valar.[9]

In 2018, Valar led Series A funding for Petal, a fintech start up[10] and led a second round of funding for Coya, a German insurance startup.[11]

In February 2019, Valar Ventures led a $28 million Series B funding round for Cluno, a mobility and fintech company based in Germany. Acton Capital Partners and Atlantic Labs, which both backed the company’s Series A round, also participated. Cluno is a digital car subscription provider that offers new mobility concept for a fixed monthly package price. The support of Valar Ventures will help to achieve optimal growth momentum.[12]

In August 2019, Valar Ventures led an $18.3 million Series A funding for BlockFi.[13]

Its investments include Breather,[14] Qonto,[15] Stash,[16] and Xero.[17]

References
  1. "Peter Thiel Has Three VC Funds – Is that Impacting Founders Fund?". Cbinsights. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  2. "Thiel". Thiel Capital. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  3. "PayPal's Peter Thiel brings venture capital firm to NYC". The Real Deal. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  4. Drury, Rod. "Peter Thiel to Invest in Xero". Xero. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  5. Hammond, Michelle (3 December 2012). "Peter Thiel-backed fund pours further investment into Xero". Startup Smart. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  6. Stewart, Sam (2014-02-18). "Xero valued at NZ$5.1 billion: 3.1 million customers by 2020?". Commercial and Financial Advisor. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  7. Dawson, Freddie (2016-01-31). "Transferwise Secures $58m From Andreessen Horowitz And Others". Forbes. Retrieved 31 Jan 2015.
  8. Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel. "Facebook Billionaire Peter Thiel Raises New Venture Fund To Invest In His 'Utopia'". businessinsider.com. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  9. Dillet, Romain (2016-04-16). "Number26 Grabs $10.6 Million To Bring Its Bank Of The Future To Everyone". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
  10. "Petal nabs $13 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, others to get credit cards to people without credit scores". VentureBeat. 2018-01-10. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
  11. "Peter Thiel's investment firm is doubling down on a German insurance startup". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
  12. "Car subscription service Cluno scores $28M in Series B funding led by Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  13. "BlockFi, which lends money to cryptocurrency holders, just raised $18.3 million led by Valar Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2019-08-06.
  14. "Breather". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  15. "Qonto". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  16. "Micro-investing startup Stash raises $40 million". Reuters. 2017-07-13. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  17. "Valar Ventures". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
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