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Skype Founder’s Venture Firm Atomico Raises $820 Million Fund

Skype Founder’s Venture Firm Atomico Raises $820 Million Fund

(Bloomberg) -- Atomico, the London-based tech investment firm started by Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom, has raised $820 million for its fifth fund targeting European startups.

The venture capital firm surpassed its target of $750 million in less than a year and was oversubscribed, raising its upper limit of $820 million. The latest raising brings Atomico’s assets under management to $2.7 billion, it said in a statement Tuesday.

Atomico’s fifth fund started investing in March 2019. It already has holdings in companies including agritech startup Infarm and Scoutbee, which uses artificial intelligence-based tools to help connect companies with suppliers.

European companies that can help businesses and consumers tackle complicated problems will make the most compelling investments going into 2020, Atomico Partner Hiro Tamura said in an interview.

“There’s just a vast world of things that are happening” in software addressing productivity, collaboration, HR and supply, Tamura said. “European companies are finding a lot of success in those areas.”

Atomico is also focusing on building out its biotech and health-tech investments after bringing on Irina Haivas, a former surgeon and private equity veteran, in 2018. She sits on the boards of several investments from the latest fund including AI-driven pharmaceutical company Healx, medical messaging app AccuRx and Kheiron Medical, which uses deep learning to help radiologists detect breast cancer.

When it comes to the intersection of biology and technology, “we are at the beginning of a longer journey and a more transformational shift when we start being able to engineer biology,” Haivas said.

“Entrepreneurs are the ultimate game changers and they use technology to rewire the world into something better, something more efficient,” Haivas said.

The company’s previous fund closed in 2017, raising $765 million. Atomico was started in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer Zennstrom, one of the cofounders of Skype and file-sharing software developer Kazaa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Thomson in London at athomson6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dinesh Nair at dnair5@bloomberg.net, Ben Scent, Marion Dakers

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