Valar Ventures
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Venture capital |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | New York City, U.S |
| Website | valar |
Valar Ventures is a US-based
Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium
, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations.
Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald are the managing partners of the firm.[4]
Investments
Valar was notably the first venture fund to invest in
Xero. The fund made its initial investment in Xero in October 2010 at a valuation of approximately $98 million.[5] Since then, the firm has spearheaded successive rounds of investment in the company[6] and Xero's market cap has grown to more than $4 billion as of February 2014.[7]
Valar also led
TransferWise's Series A and Series B financing rounds in January 2013 and April 2014, respectively. Following Valar's investment, Andreessen Horowitz led TransferWise's Series C[8] and Baillie Gifford led the company's Series D in 2016 at a $1.1 billion valuation.[citation needed
]
Both Xero and TransferWise were investments out of Valar's $100M first fund, which was a series of special purpose vehicles, including a $32 million
In February 2019, Valar Ventures led a $28 million Series B funding round for Cluno, a mobility and fintech company based in Germany. Acton Capital Partners and Atlantic Labs, which both backed the company's Series A round, also participated.[14]
References
- ^ Haggin, Patience (5 June 2017). "Thiel's Valar Ventures Finds Its Footing on Home Soil". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 14 August 2023.
- ^ "Thiel". Thiel Capital. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ "PayPal's Peter Thiel brings venture capital firm to NYC". The Real Deal. 21 November 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ "Thiel's Valar Ventures leads series A funding round in Bitpanda". Private Equity Wire. 29 September 2020.
- ^ Drury, Rod (21 October 2010). "Peter Thiel to Invest in Xero". Xero. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
- ^ Hammond, Michelle (3 December 2012). "Peter Thiel-backed fund pours further investment into Xero". Startup Smart. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
- ^ Stewart, Sam (2014-02-18). "Xero valued at NZ$5.1 billion: 3.1 million customers by 2020?". Commercial and Financial Advisor. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
- ^ Dawson, Freddie (2016-01-31). "Transferwise Secures $58m From Andreessen Horowitz And Others". Forbes. Retrieved 31 Jan 2015.
- ^ Gobry, Pascal-Emmanuel. "Facebook Billionaire Peter Thiel Raises New Venture Fund To Invest In His 'Utopia'". businessinsider.com. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
- ^ Dillet, Romain (2016-04-16). "Number26 Grabs $10.6 Million To Bring Its Bank Of The Future To Everyone". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
- ^ "Micro-investing startup Stash raises $40 million". Reuters. 2017-07-13. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
- ^ "Petal nabs $13 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, others to get credit cards to people without credit scores". VentureBeat. 2018-01-10. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
- ^ "Peter Thiel's investment firm is doubling down on a German insurance startup". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
- ^ O'Hear, Steve (11 April 2018). "Cluno, the Munich-based 'car subscription' service, raises €7M Series A". TechCrunch.