With the HV COCO Growth Continuation Fund, HV Capital is partially repositioning itself. IPOs are no longer the only source of capital for growth investments in the hundreds of million range, such as the financing rounds of Celonis, Personio or Flixmobility last year. This underscores the relevance of long-term partnerships as investment horizons are extended.
For venture capitalists, this represents a much-needed structural change in the VC landscape: Limited Partners (LPs) invest in a fund with the expectation of achieving an attractive return in approximately ten years. With the new fund, HV Capital aims to demonstrate that the VC is capable of delivering these targeted returns to its LPs within this timeframe. Additionally, the VC has seized the opportunity to leverage the value potential of a further growth phase together with new investors.
HV Capital enters new territory
"With the initiation of the first continuation fund in the German VC scene, HV Capital is breaking new ground in the industry. With HV COCO Growth, we are transferring many strong investments such as Flixmobility, Global Savings Group, and Sumup from existing funds into a new structure. This gives us more flexibility to support our portfolio companies over the long term,"
explained Martin Weber, General Partner at HV Capital.
"The market already sees HV Capital as a long-term partner for startups in all growth phases. Our experienced growth team has a strong track record of six investments through HV VIII in growth-stage technology companies. In addition, we have launched four co-investment vehicles, providing direct investment opportunities for our investors. Therefore, this continuation fund is the logical evolution of our market positioning,"
leads David Kuczek, General Partner at HV Capital.
The anchor investor in the new fund is Harbourvest. Other investors include LGT Capital Partners, Pathway Capital, Holtzbrink Publishing Group, and several unnamed family offices and financial institutions. Pathway and Holtzbrink had previously invested in other HV Capital funds. The investment team itself is also contributing more than 10 percent.
