Fund News: Index Ventures raises $442M early-stage fund

Investor in Skype, Flipboard, MySQL raises sixth fund

Index Ventures announced Sunday evening that it's raised $442 million for its sixth fund.  

Index, which has invested in companies such as Flipboard, Skype, Playfish, MySQL, Lastfm, Path, Etsy and Facebook, plans to focus the new fund on seed- to early-stage start-ups from Berlin, London, New York City, San Francisco, Stockholm, and Tel Aviv.  Among the areas the company plans to focus on include commerce, marketplaces, cloud and big data, mobile and social and financial services.

Other large funds raised this year include a $525 million fund closed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers last month; a $135 million fund started by early-stage venture capital firm First Round Capital, and a $100 fund raisclosededby Berlin-based Earlybird in April.

In March, Groupon investor NEA filed with the SEC to raise $2.3 billion, while DST, one of Facebook's biggest investors, was looking to raise $1 billion.

Andreessen Horowitz, also based in Menlo Park, secured a $1.5 billion fund in January, announcing it had raised $2.7 billion in three years.