A new venture capital fund, called Novum Hungary Growth Fund, will start operation in the end of the first quarter of 2005, the BBJ learned. The fund will manage Ђ20m and fundraising is in progress, said Jozsef Kover, director of the new fund.
The European Investment Fund, a private equity arm of the European Investment Bank, has already made a decision to invest Ђ5m into Novum, said Ulrich Grabenwarter, deputy head of the venture capital division of the European Investment Fund.
Novum has already raised about half of the planned sum from private investors and funds, while another multilateral financial institution is going to decide soon whether to put money into the fund, said a source close to the venture capital industry, speaking on condition of anonymity.
