Balderton raises £285m fund, but don't expect much for your early stage startup
Summary
Balderton made $140 million from the sale of Bebo to AOL and had 15 percent of MySQL which went for $1 billion to Sun Microsystems last year. A contact of mine close to the company told me just before Christamas “2009 is going to be terrible for startups.” In 2008 Balderton went mostly for $5 million Series A round investments and above (from Crunchbase). Part of the reason for raising this fund now is to take advantage of the opportunities that this stage of the cycle throws up.” Balderton’s thinking is evidenced by the fact that it invested in Lovefilm which will benefit from film fans avoiding high prices at cinemas. Balterton’s Barrry Maloney also told the FT there would be “some casualities” in its portfolio and made the totally safe prediction that there would be VC-backed IPOs in the next 18 to 24 months. Balderton’s other investments include 7digital, Figleaves, Newbay (social software for mobile operators), Habbo Hotel and Adjug.