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A former Sequoia Capital Partner who left the Silicon Valley firm after a bitter boardroom battle at Klarna is set to launch a $400mn UK-based venture capital fund.
Matt Miller has been raising money from institutional investors in recent months, according to people familiar with the moves, seeking to become one of the best-funded solo investors focused on backing European tech start-ups.
He has already secured at least $355mn from institutional investors, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, while aiming to reach a final fund size of around $400mn that will also include backing from entrepreneurs.
Miller left Sequoia earlier this year but continues to represent the firm on certain boards, according to those familiar with the matter. In March, UK corporate filings show Miller created a new entity called Evantic Capital. Sequoia is participating in the fund, people familiar with the deal added.
He previously spearheaded Sequoia’s expansion into Europe, helping open the firm’s London office in 2020. However, he announced he would leave Sequoia last year after being embroiled in a boardroom battle at Klarna, the Swedish buy-now, pay-later group.
Miller joined Klarna’s board at the start of 2024, and initiated a move to remove Klarna’s board chair and former Sequoia leader Michael Moritz. Sequoia managing partner Roelof Botha had backed Miller’s move, but the firm then aborted that effort, and Miller instead left his post on the Klarna board.
Miller’s new London-based fund will focus on backing technology start-ups in areas including artificial intelligence and technology infrastructure at middle stages of development or so-called series B investing.
The fund will be one of the largest VC firms based in Europe run by a single venture capitalist, and is also one of the sector’s largest new launches in a difficult fundraising market.
Other recent large launches have included last year’s debut of the new European venture capital firm Noteus, which the Financial Times reported was seeking to raise at least €600mn to back local start-ups.
Miller joined Sequoia from Goldman Sachs in 2012, and backed start-ups including dbt Labs, Grafana and UK chipmaker Graphcore which was sold to SoftBank last year.
Europe has generally been seen as lagging the US when it comes to producing leading tech start-ups.
However, the market has been buoyed by a crop of relatively new AI companies such as Lovable, Mistral, Synthesia and DeepL — as well as defence tech group Helsing, which have raised funds at multibillion-dollar valuations.
Miller and Sequoia declined to comment.
