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The new Frontline Seed Fund aims to help tech entrepreneurs ‘build a global business out of Europe’.
Frontline Ventures has announced a new €70m fund to support European B2B technology founders who are looking to expand globally.
The new fund, Frontline Seed Fund III, brings the VC’s total funds under management to €250m. It comes less than a year after the launch of Frontline X, a growth-stage fund to help US tech companies expand into Europe.
“When we looked at the data back in 2012 – at the very start of Frontline – it was painfully clear that European entrepreneurs lacked the infrastructure and support to build a global business out of Europe,” said William McQuillan, partner at Frontline Ventures.
“Today, Europe rightfully finds itself on top-tier US investors’ target lists, but global expansion remains an important challenge to solve. As a team, we’ve pooled all of our experience and resources into helping our founders cross the Atlantic. Seed Fund III will be an extension of our work – to help founders get off the ground and go global.”
Seed Fund III includes investment from the European Investment Fund, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and AIB – all of which have backed previous Frontline funds. It also includes 10 software entrepreneurs from Europe and the US.
Early-stage investments
Frontline Ventures is a VC firm active on both sides of the Atlantic, with offices in London, Dublin and San Francisco. It has backed more than 70 B2B entrepreneurs across Europe and the US.
Its seed funds have been investing in early-stage B2B tech businesses and helping European founders expand to the US market. Companies backed in Frontline’s previous seed funds include UCD spin-out Logentries, which was acquired by Rapid7 in 2015, and Dublin start-up Pointy, which was acquired by Google last year.
In May 2020, Frontline also invested in Evervault – the infosec start-up founded by young Dubliner Shane Curran – alongside Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins.
McQuillan said that working with early-stage and scaling start-ups on both sides of the Atlantic gives Frontline a “unique perspective into the fundamentals of building a global business”.
“The US accounts for 52pc of the global software market, and Europe accounts for a further 26pc. To become the global category winner, companies of all stages need to compete and win, in both,” he added. “Our job is to facilitate their growth by adding more than capital alone.”
