A new growth debt fund aimed at European tech start-ups has been launched by London-based venture debt platform Atempo Growth.

Founded in 2021, Atempo Growth has announced the first close of its oversubscribed debut fund with commitments of over $200m. The fund will target investments across Europe, and it is backed by European investors from across the continent including the European Investment Bank and Banco Santander.

It will provide flexible growth capital to companies with minimal equity dilution that can be used to complement equity financing, support operational growth, finance acquisitions as well as other tailor-made use cases.

The firm’s founders, Luca Colciago, Jack Diamond and Matteo Avramov Giulivi have a combined experience of more than 20 years working in the European debt space. They have provided capital to more than 100 companies across a range of sectors, including money transfer platform Currencycloud and Prague payments start-up Twisto.

“Over the last decade, the European tech ecosystem has gone from strength to strength, and growth debt has played an important role. Tech companies are increasingly adopting this source of funding to complement equity. Our pan-European team is well positioned to support high growth companies, with over 30 years combined experience in the space,” said Colciago.

The Atempo Growth team is responding to an increasing demand for debt funding in the European tech sector. Growth debt is increasingly becoming a go-to funding source for European innovators with the venture debt market increasing by six to eight times between 2015 and 2020. These figures are taken from the ‘State of European Tech 2020.’ However, the report added the disclaimer that data in the venture debt arena was very scarce.

The team expects to announce a second close in Q2 of this year. It is also actively hiring across Europe as it works on increasing its staff numbers to support its further expansion.

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