European tech venture capital to pass €10bn mark

European tech start-ups are set to break the €10bn venture capital mark this year for the first time as a number of huge deals helped rack up a total of €3.47bn transactions in the second quarter of the year.

A total of 275 funding rounds was completed by companies based in 23 European countries between April and June this year.

Of the €3.47bn total, more than 30% came from non-European investors many of whom are particularly active in later rounds.

The strong second-quarter showing puts European tech firms on a trajectory that is likely to see them surpass €10bn in venture capital funding for the first time — an increase of 20% on last year’s €7.9bn total.

The figures, released by industry website tech.eu, also point to a wide disparity between the best performing countries in terms of attracting venture capital funding and the rest of Europe.

With almost €1bn in funding attracted over the three-month period, the UK led the way followed by Sweden with €582m of funding.

Unsurprisingly, the two largest funding rounds of the quarter were closed by Swedish and UK companies respectively in the form of Spotify at €478.44m and Oneweb at €454.79m.

Despite Spotify’s significant contribution to its host country’s total, the figures points towards the emergence of Sweden as a major player in attracting venture capital funding.

Without the Spotify investment, Sweden would still rank fourth in the list.

Outside of the UK and Sweden, Israel at €541m and Germany at €494m were the next most prolific in attracting funding, followed by France on €106m.

Figures for Ireland show tech firms here raised €120m in the first quarter of 2015.