Capital

One Stake Was Worth More Than All Three Funds

Index Ventures announced $2bn across three funds on 31 July. Its 12 percent of Wiz was worth about $3.8bn. The split of the new money is the real signal.

CapitalBy Servola Tech Desk2026-07-315 min read

AI-assisted, edited by humans. | Editor-in-Chief: Leon Soliman | Editorial standards

One Stake Was Worth More Than All Three Funds

Key takeaways

Index Ventures now has $3.5 billion to invest across three funds, and its 12 percent stake in Wiz was worth roughly $3.8 billion on its own; when one position outweighs the entire firm's deployable capital, the fund is not looking for a good outcome from you, it is looking for an outlier.
Of the $2 billion newly raised, $700 million went to the growth fund and $100 million to the venture fund, which grew from $800 million in 2024 to $900 million; the money moved to the stage where revenue already exists, so match your raise to where a firm actually added capital rather than to its headline number.
The growth pool now stands at $2.2 billion against a $400 million seed fund, making the latest stage 5.5 times the earliest one and $900 million larger than seed and venture combined.
Index describes its territory as the ten-hour time zone running from Tel Aviv to San Francisco, and Wiz, the exit that paid for this raise, was founded at one end of that corridor and sold at the other; Europe sits in the middle of the sentence rather than at either end of it.

Two billion raised, and the arithmetic underneath it

Index Ventures announced on Friday 31 July 2026 that it had raised $2 billion across three funds. The breakdown is a $400 million seed fund, a $900 million venture fund, and $700 million added to the $1.5 billion growth fund it raised in 2024, taking that vehicle to $2.2 billion. Total investing capital across all stages now stands at $3.5 billion.

The firm is thirty years old, and it said so in the title of its own announcement. The post names Wiz, Robinhood, Roblox, Figma, Revolut, Datadog and Adyen among the companies it has backed, and states the firm's approach as finding the best people early and staying with them for as long as it takes. It points at artificial intelligence as the opportunity, describing it as opening entire industries to disruption, from infrastructure and cybersecurity to fintech, healthcare, productivity and consumer.

Two years earlier, in July 2024, Index raised $2.3 billion across two funds. That round included $800 million for the predecessor to today's venture fund and the $1.5 billion growth fund now being topped up. Those two numbers, $800 million then and $900 million now, are where this story actually lives.

The stake that beat the fund

Earlier this year Wiz completed its $32 billion sale to Alphabet. Index had backed the cloud security company from the seed stage and was its largest outside shareholder, holding roughly 12 percent. On the deal price, that position was worth in the region of $3.8 billion.

Set that against what the firm has just told the market it will invest. A single holding in a single company returned more than the $3.5 billion Index now has available across seed, venture and growth combined. Not more than the seed fund. More than all of it.

This is how venture returns have always been shaped, and there is nothing improper about it. It matters because it is the arithmetic sitting behind every term sheet the firm now writes. A fund whose last cycle was defined by one position of that size is not underwriting your business on the expectation of a solid trade sale. It needs a company that can carry a fund on its own, and it will price, structure and push accordingly.

Where the new money actually went

The distribution of the $2 billion is a clearer signal than the total. The venture fund went from $800 million in 2024 to $900 million now, an increase of 12.5 percent across two years in which round sizes at that stage did not stand still. The growth fund went from $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion, an increase of just under 47 percent.

Put the three vehicles side by side and the shape is unmistakable. The growth pool is 5.5 times the size of the seed fund, and it is $900 million larger than the seed and venture funds added together. Of the $2 billion newly raised, $700 million went to the latest stage and $400 million to the earliest.

Read plainly, a firm with an outstanding early-stage record has declined to scale its early-stage cheque book to match a windfall, and has put the largest single increment into the stage where a company already has revenue, customers and a repeatable motion. That is a considered position rather than a retreat. It is also a fact about where the money is available.

Europe is the middle of the sentence

Index describes its own territory as the ten-hour time zone that runs from Tel Aviv to San Francisco. It is a good line, and it is worth reading twice, because both of the places it names sit outside Europe. The corridor is defined by its endpoints, and Europe is the ground between them.

Wiz makes the point concrete. The company was founded at one end of that corridor and sold to an acquirer at the other, and it is the exit that paid for this raise. Nothing about that is a criticism of a firm that has backed Revolut in London and Adyen in Amsterdam and taken both a long way. It is a description of where the defining outcome came from.

For a founder in Europe the practical reading is not that European capital has left. Index has just committed $400 million to seed and $900 million to venture, and that money will be deployed. It is that the benchmark being applied to a European round was set by a company that ran the full length of the corridor, and that the firms writing those cheques increasingly hold their largest pool for the stage after the risk has come out.

What to ask before you take the cheque

First, ask which fund your money is coming from and what that fund did last cycle. A cheque from a $400 million seed vehicle and a cheque from a $2.2 billion growth vehicle carry different expectations of you, even from the same partner in the same building. The fund's size and its concentration tell you what outcome makes it whole.

Second, ask what share of the previous fund's returns came from a single position. If most of it did, understand what that means for your own exit: an outcome that would be excellent for you can be immaterial to the fund, and that gap is where pressure to raise more than you need, and to accept structure you do not want, comes from.

Third, match your stage to where the firm actually added capital. Index put $700 million into growth and $100 million into venture. If you are raising a Series A, you are approaching the pool that grew by an eighth. If you are past revenue and looking for a round that scales what already works, you are approaching the one that grew by nearly half. Read the split, not the headline.

Frequently asked questions

Is a $2 billion raise a sign that venture funding is recovering?

It is a sign that capital is available to firms with a proven record, which is not the same thing. The distribution matters more than the total: the earliest-stage vehicle here is $400 million against a $2.2 billion growth pool. Money returning to the asset class does not automatically mean money returning to first cheques.

Why does the Wiz stake matter to a company that will never be Wiz?

Because it sets the model your round is priced inside. A fund that returned roughly $3.8 billion from one 12 percent position is built around outliers, and the terms it offers reflect the search for another one. Most companies in that portfolio are not expected to be the outlier, which is precisely why the structure of your deal deserves more attention than the valuation on the front page.

Does this change anything for a European founder specifically?

It sharpens a question worth asking anyway. Index has committed $400 million to seed and $900 million to venture, so early-stage capital is genuinely there. What has grown fastest is the pool that comes in later, which means a European company that reaches durable revenue is meeting a larger and more competitive supply of capital than one that is still proving the idea.

The headline number is $2 billion and the useful number is $700 million, because that is the part that moved and it moved to the late stage. A firm whose single best position outweighs everything it now has to invest is telling you exactly what it needs from the next thirty years. Read the split before you read the press release.

Index VenturesWizVenture capitalFund raisingEuropean startupsGrowth equity

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