Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi state investment company, will headquarter its new $400 million (£309.5 million) European tech start-up fund in London.
The new fund will invest between $5 million and $30 million in suitable European start-ups, insiders told the Financial Times.
The London office will open in the spring. For now, the fund is operating out of SoftBank’s offices in London.
Japan’s SoftBank is providing half the cash for the new Mubadala tech fund. Conversely, the Abu Dhabi investor is the second-biggest backer of SoftBank’s own $100 billion Vision Fund, which earlier this month led the largest ever fundraising for a European fintech business, raising $324 million for challenger bank OakNorth. Mubadala contributed around $15 billion to the $97 million Vision Fund.
Mubadala already has a tech venture fund based in the US, operating in San Francisco.
Softbank was announced as a strategic investor in the $400m fund when it was unveiled in June last year as part of London Tech Week.
The fund said at the time the fund would target “founder-led, high growth technology companies with global scale and impact”.
It will also help European companies establish operations in Abu Dhabi.
Mubadala deputy chief executive Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi said at the time that the firm believed “the UK is a very strong market for future technology innovation and entrepreneurship”.
Tech investment has become increasingly important for oil-rich countries such as the United Arab Emirates, as they wean themselves off surviving mainly on a depleting oil industry.
