London-based Octopus Ventures raised an additional £100 million to further its support of entrepreneurs across Europe.

The VC firm now invests more than £75 million each year, and over 2015 it has invested in 11 new businesses, expanding the portfolio to more than 50 investments.

Octopus invests from £250,000 to £25 million in a first round of funding, and acknowledges that a significant part of its portfolio consists of referrals from serial entrepreneurs and companies it has already backed.

Alex Macpherson, head of Octopus Ventures, commented: “We have been fortunate to back some outstanding entrepreneurs over the years, many of whom come back to us time and again with new ventures, or who go on to introduce us to other exciting companies.”

>Read: Why I invested in Zoopla – Alex Macpherson explains what he saw in Zoopla that first excited him.

Over the last eight years, Octopus Ventures has worked with a diverse range of successful companies, including Zoopla Property Group, Secret Escapes, graze.com, Property Partner, SwiftKey, Sofar Sounds, UniPlaces, and tails.com, seeing these businesses through its lifecycle.

Today’s announcement comes just weeks after the sale of SwiftKey to Microsoft, Vision Direct to Essilor, and six months after the launch of the $140m Octopus Zenith Opportunities II LP (“Octopus Opportunities Fund”) aimed at providing growth capital to fast-growing, later-stage companies across Europe.

Macpherson stated this injection into the firm’s early stage funds will go towards developing a European entrepreneurial ecosystem: “At Octopus, we want to be there supporting them from the beginning of their business journey to the later stages of growth.”