Earlybird Venture Capital (www.earlybird.com) today announces the $100M first close of its fourth venture fund based in Berlin. The target fund size is $200M. This brings the total Earlybird raise to over $700M since its founding in 1997.

Earlybird's new fund will be dedicated to early-stage investments in disruptive global consumer and enterprise internet and technology businesses originating from Europe, with an emphasis on German speaking countries. Recent figures suggest that Berlin is now one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial hotspots globally, second only to Silicon Valley as the highest number of tech start-up company founding rates worldwide.

"We are deeply committed to founder success and in helping entrepreneurs build tomorrow's category leaders. In addition to maintaining our Continental investment focus, we plan to significantly add to our seven existing portfolio investments in Berlin, which has become a nourishing ground for global tech companies," highlights Christian Nagel, Managing Partner at Earlybird.

"The new Earlybird fund builds on Earlybird's top tier performance in adverse market cycles over the last 14 years. We are proud that we have been able to attract a high quality group of existing and new investors from all over the world," said Hendrik Brandis, Managing Partner at Earlybird.

"Earlybird's announcement today is another sign that venture capital is re-emerging as an attractive asset class on the Continent and underscores that, despite the sovereign debt crisis, innovation has not fallen victim to recession and the financing of novel companies that shift paradigms has little correlation to macro economic conditions," said Andreas Schmidt, Head of Primary Private Equity at Deutsche Bank Private Equity.

ABOUT EARLYBIRD

Established in 1997 Earlybird currently manages over $700 million in assets and is a leading European venture capital firm active in technology venture investing. Since inception, Earlybird has invested in many companies which have sparked some of the most significant innovations in business and technology and resulted in large scale ($1bn+) IPOs and trade sales. Earlybird's active portfolio currently includes more than 20 companies in the consumer internet and enterprise services space such as B2X Care Solutions, Carpooling.com, Crowdpark, Madvertise, nfon, Peak Games, Smava and Socialbakers.