Q&A with Niklas Zennström, On Atomico Fundraise and European Venture Capital

Atomico Ventures, a European VC fund run by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, today announced that it has closed its second fund -- and first institutional one -- with $165 million in capital commitments. So we spent some time on the phone this morning with Zennström, in order to learn more about the fundraise and the state of European venture capital. Last May, Atomico said in an SEC filing that it was looking to raise up to $266 million. Why did you close on so much less? I wouldn't say we closed on much less. The thing our lawyers told was was that we needed to set a limit in the SEC filing, because if we went above it we'd have to do another filing. So we basically put a high number with a really big buffer. The reality is that, with the kind of investments we’re looking at, you don’t want to have too big of a fund.