Private equity firm Index Ventures has launched a new fund with €400 million (£298 million) to invest primarily in the technology and life science sectors. The launch follows the US$1 billion (£510 million) sale of portfolio company Minerva, the developer of the MySQL open-source database, to computing giant Sun Microsystems.

Private equity firm Index Ventures has launched a new fund with €400 million (£298 million) to invest primarily in the technology and life science sectors. The launch follows the US$1 billion (£510 million) sale of portfolio company Minerva, the developer of the MySQL open-source database, to computing giant Sun Microsystems.

The fund, dubbed Index Ventures Growth, will make investments of between €20 million and €50 million in Europe-based companies, as well as considering US business with plans to expand internationally. Index says that the fund fills a gap created by the movement of traditional late-stage investors into larger deal sizes.

The fund’s investment team will be led by Index founder Giuseppe Zocco, former Yahoo! Europe CEO Dominique Vidal, and Guido Magni, former global head of medical science at Swiss healthcare company Roche.

Zocco explains: ‘Index has been investing in European start-ups since 1996 so we’ve had front-row seats to watch the industry grow and mature.

‘There is now a critical mass of companies that have the potential to be market leaders and make a global impact.’

Index’s venture capital fund, Index Ventures IV, will continue to focus on seed and early-stage investments. Past successes for the firm include internet telephony service Skype and music website Last.fm.