The value of venture capital raised by UK companies surged to the highest quarterly total in Q1 2021 according to research from Refinitiv Deals Intelligence.

UK companies raised £3.5bn from 206 deals in the first three months of 2021 – up from the £2.5bn in Q4 2020 from 140 deals.

The total raised was just under double that of German companies, the next most active European nation, with £1.9bn raised from 165 deals. Rounding off the top three, French companies saw 99 rounds valued at £1bn. UK companies raised nearly as much as the next three European nations combined.

UK-based companies accounted for six out of the top ten VC deals in Europe with all occupying the technology sector. The biggest UK deal being the £329m funding round into Checkout.com, followed by the £307m round into Blockchain.com. Hopin was the third largest VC deal worth £288m.

The most active UK investor was Index Ventures which invested £604m in 27 deals followed by Henderson Global Investors which invested £131m in 19 deals. Softbank Investment Advisers came in third with £517m in 16 deals.

Across Europe, European venture capital activity totalled £10.2 billion invested across 644 rounds in the first three months of 2021. This marked a 128% increase in values and a 61% increase in volumes from the same period in 2020 and overtook the recently set record of £6.8 billion in Q4 2020 as the strongest individual quarter from a value perspective. In volume terms, the quarter was the most active since the 746 set in Q4 2006.

Cornelia Andersson, Head of M&A and Capital Raising at Refinitiv, an LSEG company, comments: “UK venture capital investment has had a stellar start to 2021. With another consecutive record-breaking quarter and with a rebounding economy, confident investors in the UK, and indeed across Europe, are ploughing capital into the tech space like there is no tomorrow.

“Investment into tech as a portion of VC has been steadily increasing for nearly a decade and a half now, now amounting to three-quarters of all deal activity this quarter – and significantly more than during the dot-com era.

“The low interest rate environment and successful vaccine deployment is also helping to fuel investment appetite and it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing any negative side effects.”