Expa, a venture studio founded by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp in 2014, has closed its third fund at $200 million and opened an office in London to focus on UK and European investments.
The funds will go towards building new companies in its startup studio and continuing to support founders through early-stage investments, which will see portfolio companies based in the UK expand to the US.
Expa, which has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, says the launch of the London office signals a serious interest in European investments and entrepreneurship.
It is overseen by Expa Partner David Clark who has spent the last 18 years building businesses like Uber, Virgin Galactic, and KittyHawk out of the UK. “There’s a real surge in companies being built in Europe right now,” he says.
“Expa is in a position where it can help provide the bridge to the US market, allowing these companies to achieve hyper-growth quicker and more efficiently.”
Expa’s first seed investment in the UK, London-based digital supply chain and freight platform Beacon, is now valued at $250m. Recent investments in that region also include autonomous drone delivery company Wingcopter (Germany), liver medicines company Ochre Bio (Oxford), and privacy-first eSigning solution Certifaction in Zurich, Switzerland.
For many European startups, the North American market presents an exponential growth opportunity. The appeal of working with Expa comes from knowing that the Partners have built and exited several companies themselves.
“Even for the most talented and knowledgeable founders, it can be a struggle to bring a product or service to a market with which they have less familiarity,” explains Clark. “But because Expa knows that market so well and our partners have built their own successful startups, they are able to guide them through that process.”
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Expa seed-backed companies like Fabric, Radar, Statespace, Spatial, and Convoy have reached over $8 billion in value and raised over $1bn in funding. Over 80% of Expa’s seed companies went on to successfully raise their Series A – nearly double the industry benchmark.
“Entrepreneurship is about seeing opportunity and then taking action,” says managing partner Roberto Sanabria. “You can either meet founders whose vision is aligned with yours and back them, or you can bring the idea into the world yourself. There is merit in both approaches, and we are uniquely positioned to be great partners at the earliest stages of a company.”