25 years of Balderton: A trip down memory lane

In 1999, the team at Benchmark Capital had been in business for four years and already made a name for themselves in the Silicon Valley VC world. They were very early backers of companies like eBay, Juniper Networks and Red Hat – all of which went public around that time. The partners had also come across interesting founders in Europe, but felt they couldn’t provide the same level of company building support from 5,000 miles away. Convinced that a company like eBay could just as easily have been started in Barcelona as Silicon Valley, they decided to raise a European fund and build a team on the ground in London.

The first step was hiring the right people – Bruce Dunlevie ran the search and found a small group of partners who agreed to join this new venture. Bruce also moved his family over to support the founding team. The European arm of the firm was set up to mirror Benchmark’s equal partnership – something that the team in the US felt was critical to their success.

They raised three funds under this structure, before the London-based team branched out on their own. Balderton – now a stand alone firm, exclusively focused on investing in European founders – was named after the street where the first office was located.

Balderton was small but started to build a reputation based on a successful track record, especially as the fintech sector started taking off in the mid-2010’s. We invested in companies like Nutmeg, Revolut (leading the company’s first funding round), GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and Zego, which have gone on to be category leaders. Depop and Dream Games also came out of this decade – both of which are household names with consumers all over the world. This was the time period when much of the current partner team joined the firm – I came on board in 2008 and was closely followed by Rob, Daniel, Suranga and James.

In early 2015, Balderton moved into a new office near King’s Cross, where we are still based today. The team has grown and so have the funds and the portfolio. Rana joined us in 2020 and we raised our first growth fund in 2021. Our last funds (early + growth) totalled $1.3 billion, which are the largest combined early and growth funds dedicated to Europe. To date, we’ve backed more than 275 companies from all over Europe.

Balderton HQ is also now a home base for the wider tech ecosystem – hosting more than 70 events every year that bring people together to discuss sector trends, talk about the challenges facing high growth businesses, and just enjoy each other’s company. 

We also open our doors to a group of early stage founders who join the Balderton Launched program every six months – sharing desk space, joining our events, and helping each other get their new ideas and companies off the ground. 

As the firm evolved, we started thinking more seriously about our impact on the world, as well as that of our portfolio companies. That led to the development of our Sustainable Future Goals – launched in 2020 and now reported on annually. You can read the latest report here. They guide our investments and help our portfolio build responsible, sustainable businesses, which we think becomes a clear competitive advantage. 

In 2022, we started the Founder Wellbeing and Performance Platform – a series of programs to help our founders perform at their highest level, consistently over time. We provide access to executive coaches, peer-led CEO Forums, leadership development and physical and mental health support through WellFounded. More than 100 of our founders have completed at least one of these programs and talk to us about the huge difference it has made in their ability to be the best founder or CEO possible.

Over this time, as the team has grown, people have come and gone from the firm. We’re proud of the amazing things that many have gone on to do – from starting their own funds, to taking on operating roles, founding companies or building new media platforms. The VC ecosystem itself, not just the startups, benefits hugely from people with experience moving on to start new things.

The wider tech startup world in Europe has grown on every key metric over the past 25 years – number of entrepreneurs, volume of companies, level of past experiences of founders and team members and, of course, venture capital. There have been temporary setbacks – the 2008 financial crisis, the post-Covid tech slump – but the ecosystem has bounced back stronger each time. Right now, the confluence of a huge new technological opportunity in the form of generative AI, as well as a community that has done it before and has access to the capital required is, unsurprisingly, yielding a huge number of sector-defining companies.

The Balderton team today remains close and committed to our original purpose – finding and backing Europe’s best, most ambitious founders who want to build businesses that change the world. We are founders ourselves, investment bankers and operators. And we firmly believe that now is the best time in history to be investing in Europe. With companies like Wayve, Quantum Systems, Proxima Fusion, Fuse Energy and The Exploration Company – it feels like, even after 25 years, we are just getting started.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Balderton story over the years. We feel honoured to be a part of this incredible ecosystem, lucky to work with thoughtful, curious, creative and ambitious people every day. And we remain Europe’s biggest fans.