Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Union Square in New York City. The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations. Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald are the managing partners of the firm.
Investments
Valar was notably the first venture fund to invest in Xero. The fund made its initial investment in Xero in October 2010 at a valuation of approximately $98 million. Since then, the firm has spearheaded successive rounds of investment in the company and Xero's market cap has grown to more than $4 billion as of February 2014. Valar also led TransferWise's Series A and Series B financing rounds in January 2013 and April 2014, respectively. Following Valar's investment, Andreessen Horowitz led TransferWise's Series C and Baillie Gifford led the company's Series D in 2016 at a $1.1 billion valuation. Both Xero and TransferWise were investments out of Valar's $100M first fund, which was a series of special purpose vehicles, including a $32 million New Zealand specific fund. From its two funds, Valar has led investments in several startups including Xero, TransferWise, Breather, Number26, EyeEm, Even, Lystable, Granify, Homie, TradeIt, Vend, Descomplica, Oppa and Dinda. In 2016, N26 received €10 million in a series A round by Valar. In 2018, Valar led Series A funding for Petal, a fintechstart up and led a second round of funding for Coya, a German insurance startup. In February 2019, Valar Ventures led a $28 million Series B funding round for , a mobility and fintech company based in Germany. Acton Capital Partners and Atlantic Labs, which both backed the round, also participated. Cluno is a digital car subscription provider that offers new mobility concept for a fixed monthly package price. The support of Valar Ventures will help to achieve optimal growth momentum. In August 2019, Valar Ventures led an $18.3 million Series A funding for . Its investments include Breather, Qonto, Stash, and Xero.
