London-based fund manager C5 Capital is aiming to raise a $150m cloud computing fund in what could prove to be the largest fund of its type in Europe. Throwing further weight behind the new fund is Marcos Battisti, the former European head of Intel Capital, who will join the firm in September to lead the fund.
The new fund seeks to grab the lucrative opportunities afforded by the booming cloud computing market, with Mr Battisti no stranger in finding sound investments. At Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of the technology group, he led investments in companies such as Sigfox and Anobit.
The new fund will look to invest in the next stage development of companies in the cloud market, with the FT putting likely investments at between $5m and $15m.
Speaking to the FT, C5 Capital CIO Daniel Freeman said that the fund would look to back not only consultancies, but also cloud infrastructure and platform providers. “It would have been a huge miss if we didn’t get involved in this market,” he said to the FT.
The new fund stemmed from C5’s partnership with AWS earlier in 2016, which involved both companies in a Bahrain-based fund that backed Middle East and Africa start-ups.
This is not the first time that C5 Capital has embarked on a first-of-its-kind fund, having launched Europe’s first dedicated cyber security fund in 2014.
