TL;DR: Index Ventures has closed $2 billion (roughly £1.6 billion) in new capital, giving the London-headquartered firm $3.5 billion (about £2.8 billion) available to invest. The raise comprises a $400 million seed fund, a $900 million venture fund, and a $700 million top-up that lifts its growth vehicle from $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion.

The timing is what makes it notable. Venture fundraising has been difficult across most of the market: weak exit activity has left firms unable to return cash to their own investors, which in turn makes successor funds hard to close. Capital has kept flowing to a narrow set of AI companies while startups in other sectors face a markedly tougher climate.

What made this one closeable

Index has an unusually strong exit record to point at. Founded in 1996, it backed Revolut, Adyen, Figma, Roblox, Datadog and Wiz early. Recent events did the persuading: Google’s $32 billion purchase of Wiz, Figma’s flotation, and a secondary share sale that reportedly valued Revolut at $115 billion.

That is the mechanism worth understanding. Realised returns, not thesis documents, are what let a firm raise in a hard market. Index could close $2 billion because it had recently handed money back.

Looking forward

The firm says the new capital lets it back founders from first cheque through to public markets across Europe, Israel and the US. Its stated conviction is that AI is widening who gets to build things at all, shortening the route from concept to shipped product in fields spanning consumer software, healthcare, fintech and cybersecurity. It has already increased AI exposure through Mistral, Cohere, and Ineffable Intelligence, founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver.

For UK founders, the practical read is mixed. A London firm holding $3.5 billion is unambiguously good for domestic deal flow. But the same conditions that made this raise possible — concentration of capital into AI and into managers with proven exits — are what make raising harder for everyone else. Availability of capital is not the same as breadth of it.