Cherry Ventures Raises Fresh €300 Million Fund to Target Web3 Startups

• Cherry Ventures has raised a €300 million ($340 million) fund to back seed-stage European startups.
• It will back founders building the “next era” of tech, including those working on Web3 projects. 
• Founder Filip Dames said the firm was “not afraid” of multi-stage funds coming into seed rounds.

Berlin-based venture capital firm Cherry Ventures has launched a new €300 million ($340 million) seed fund that will invest in the “next era” of European founders and tech ideas.

Cherry IV, the firm’s fourth fund since being founded in 2012, will seek to back startups at pre-seed and seed stages of growth across established and emerging tech sectors across the continent, including crypto and Web3, a loose concept based on decentralized technologies.

The German fund has written early checks for a number of unicorns, including AUTO1 Group, an online car dealership backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund that publicly listed at a $2.2 billion valuation in 2021. Cherry also backed the now-public Cazoo, which listed through a SPAC in March. 

The capital available in Europe for venture-backed startups has soared over the past year, as investors from the US have started to build a presence on the ground. Silicon Valley giant Sequoia, for instance, invests at both growth and seed stages with partners based in Europe.

Filip Dames, founding partner at Cherry Ventures, said the firm was “not afraid” of funds that were multi-stage and pushing into seed-stage rounds, “even if they have big brands.”

“I don’t think there has ever been a time where it has been so easy for companies to get access to funding and capital,” Dames said. 

Cherry has reserved 60% of its new fund for follow-on investments. The fund was raised with investment from institutions including endowments, foundations, family offices, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and a number of entrepreneurs, in what Dames described as its “fastest fundraise ever”. 

In addition to crypto and Web3-related investments, Cherry will look to back startups operating in the climate and food-tech space, with an emphasis on sustainability.

Across Cherry Ventures’ three previous funds, the post-money valuation of its portfolio is over €23 billion ($26 billion), with around €5 billion in follow-on financing raised by its startups in 2021.

The fundraise follows on from another VC raise by London-based Blossom Capital, which is also keen to back Web3 and crypto-related startups. Blossom, which backed $40 billion fintech Checkout.com, has raised $432 million.