Headline Closes $865 Million to Invest in Growth-Stage Tech Companies

Headline today announced Headline Global Growth IV with $865M¹ of capital committed to the strategy to support companies at their Growth inflection points, Series B and beyond.

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Headline's Global Growth Equity Team (Photo: Business Wire)

The Global Growth strategy has three distinct advantages: a diverse and experienced team, extensive geographic coverage, and advanced in-house built technology for sourcing (Searchlight) and analytics (DeepDive). Led by seasoned Growth investor Shalini Rao, the Growth team is committed to identifying and nurturing "Paradiesvögel"—tenacious technology founders poised for global success. Recent team additions to Headline Global Growth include Nancy Xiao, Trevor Neff, Reda Bensaid, Jake Horwitz and Austin Hack, all of whom will work out of Headline’s San Francisco and European offices.

Global Growth IV represents the evolution of growth investing at Headline. Previously, Headline primarily made investments in growth companies where Headline also had early stage exposure, backing standouts like SEMrush, Pismo, Raisin, Segment, and Fetch. With a strategy specifically crafted to capture the inflection points of Growth, Headline is expanding its universe. The fund will seek to deploy capital flexibly, with investments ranging from roughly $20 million to $70 million, mainly focusing on Headline’s core markets in the US and Europe. This approach will allow Headline to capitalize on its history of seeking to back category-leading companies in every major global tech market.

The Global Growth strategy is built on a foundation of Headline's core values and the rigor of world-class growth investing. The firm has developed advanced sourcing technologies, including the proprietary platforms, Searchlight and DeepDive, which enhance the team's ability to connect with founders and analyze business efficiencies. This technology-driven approach enables the team to engage with around 80% of companies that have raised Series A financings each month.

Headline's commitment to fostering close, long-term relationships with entrepreneurs is reflected in its investment philosophy. The firm prioritizes quality over quantity, focusing on a small number of companies to provide high levels of engagement and support.

“An investment firm ultimately builds just one product: its people,” said Rao. “And the team at Headline is united around the single objective of helping entrepreneurs succeed. To do that we will draw on our networks and track records, built up over years in both the US and Europe. But really it’s a mindset: we will do anything and everything we can to help our founders create generational companies. Just like the founders that we hope to back, we hustle and we are hungry.”

“The European tech ecosystem is still in its early stages, with lots of unrealized potential. As we have seen in the past 20 years, venture markets can shift rapidly, but technology as a whole continues growing. AI is transforming every industry and creating a massive reset,” says Christian Leybold, Founding Partner of Headline. “With a decade of track record, a proprietary technology platform, and teams on the ground in major technology hubs, Growth IV arrives at a fitting time to back some of the best private technology companies—regardless of stage.”

As Headline embarks on this next chapter, it remains dedicated to supporting innovative technology companies throughout their lifecycle. With over $4 billion in assets under management, Headline is well-positioned to drive growth and innovation in the technology sector.

The fund includes capital commitments from KfW Capital, the venture subsidiary of the German state-owned investment and development bank KfW, and the European Investment Fund (EIF). Commenting on the raise, Marjut Falkstedt, EIF Chief Executive, says: “Despite being home to world-class talent, cost-efficient companies, and groundbreaking ideas, Europe invests significantly less in venture capital compared to the United States and Asia. This funding gap not only limits our startups' ability to scale but also risks losing them to foreign markets where capital is more readily available. This is a trend that we are committed to reversing, and that is why we are happy to back Headline through the European Tech Champions Initiative.”

Christian Röhle, Head of Investment Management of KfW Capital, commented: “Headline’s $865 million growth fund is a very positive signal for the European VC ecosystem. Large-volume VC funds are indispensable to close the later-stage financing gap in the European VC market. Only large VC funds can lead large financing rounds to support the growth of promising scale-ups. In parallel to its successful closing, Headline attracted two experienced international female investment professionals as partners to its new growth fund, thereby fostering diversity in the European VC ecosystem.”

About Headline

Founded in 1998, Headline is a venture capital firm that partners with fast-growing technology teams in key geographies to make their success global. With more than $4B of assets under management, the firm invests from its network of regionally-focused early-stage funds across the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Headline’s Global Growth Fund invests globally from Series B and beyond. The size and locations of these funds allow the firm to see local trends up close, meet winning founders, and lead rounds at every stage. Among the 300+ investments globally, Headline’s portfolio includes Acorns, AppFolio, ANGI (FKA Angie’s List), Brite Payments, Bumble, Fetch, Gopuff, Honeycomb, LucidLink, Mistral AI, Monta, NGINX, Raisin, Sonos, Segment, SEMrush, Staffbase, Swile.

Headline relies on the “venture capital adviser exemption” for purposes of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. This press release announces the close of our two parallel funds. No part of this press release is intended to be, and may be relied upon, as investment advice, investment recommendation, an offer to sell, or the solicitation of any offer to buy, any security or adopt any investment strategy. No compensation was paid for any quoted remarks included in this press release. A complete list of Headline’s investments is available at headline.com/portfolio.

¹ All amounts that are denominated in EUR (Euros) have been converted to USD (U.S. Dollars) using an exchange rate of 1.1087 the exchange rate as of September 9, 2024. Please note that exchange rates fluctuate, and the conversion rate at the time of actual transactions may differ.

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