Post by HPE Growth

Is Europe’s growth equity market on the rise? 📈   Tim van Delden recently joined a panel with Nenad Marovac (DN Capital), Rainer Märkle (HV Capital), and Roland Dennert (Cipio Partners) to dive into ‘Opportunities in Growth Equity and Technology’.   Here are our key takeaways:   • Challenges in fundraising: Europe is seeing longer gaps between funding rounds, more down-rounds, and a rise in bridge rounds.   • But there’s increasingly positive signs in the market for this trend to end: Tim shared our portfolio company EGYM’s success story, which raised two growth equity rounds in less than 14 months, each with significant upticks and Tier I global investors backing those rounds (Meritech Capital, L Catterton & Affinity).   • Exits are back: While at the VC stage, ‘exits came in buses’ in 2021, after a slow 2022 and 2023 in growth exits are happening again. A great example is our sale of WeTransfer to Bending Spoons this July 2024.   Big opportunities ahead: All panelists were very aligned in their view — Growth equity in Europe is on the strong rise, creating opportunity for creating stellar returns. The already existing gap between the growing number of great companies out there and the rather limited VC/growth capital supply is widening.   A huge thanks to Private Equity Insights DACH for organizing this great quality panel!