By : Mohamed Helmy – Nahla Ahmed
500 Startups, one of the world's most active venture capital firms, has announced the conclusion of its largest flagship fundraising campaign of $140 million, bringing its total assets under management to $1.8 billion*. The company also announced a rebranding to 500 Global and an expansion of its investment strategy beyond accelerators and upstream investments.
The 11-year-old company's global rollout was a huge success with the first leading 500 Global Top Performing Funding Campaign^. In total, the company's portfolio has yielded 33 companies worth more than $1 billion, and more than 120 companies worth more than $100 million, including Talkdesk, Canva, Bukalapak, Grab, Shippo, and others. The Global 500 has also supported more than 6,000 entrepreneurs in 77 countries.
“Our mission and investment policy has been based from the start on our belief in the presence of exceptional entrepreneurs around the world, and this has led us to begin investing in companies beyond Silicon Valley, as far as Latin America and East Asia,” said Kristin Tsai, CEO and Co-Founder at 500 Global. 2011, the Middle East in 2012, Africa in 2013, and Southeast Asia in 2014.
Our early convictions led to the creation of a diversified global portfolio spanning many countries, sectors and business stages, and the proportion of invested companies outside the USA in our portfolio reached 46% ".
500 Global will continue to invest in accelerator programs and initial investment stages as part of its plans to expand its investment strategy, as well as investments in the later growth stages of companies. Indeed, the company has begun placing larger investments in companies, managing or co-leading rounds of financing, as well as offering co-investment opportunities in later stages of growth to limited financing partners.
Tsai added, “The global environment for startups today is evolving at an unprecedented pace. With the continued globalization of venture capital and the increase in the number of companies with more than one billion dollars in capital outside the United States, 500 Global has a unique position and solid expertise, with a proven investment track record in global markets. Our new brand and our ambitious vision to expand our support to include more entrepreneurs in all phases of projects worldwide.”
