Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. is taking an increasingly active approach to the European startups it backs as it seeks to improve returns, according to people familiar with the matter.
Since the start of this year, at least four companies in Mubadala’s European portfolio have undergone either major structural change, refinancing, or a replacement of leadership, coinciding with a global chill in the sector.
Mubadala’s head of ventures, Ibrahim Ajami, has been on a mission since 2019 to establish the investor, owned by Abu Dhabi’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, as one of the world’s premier venture capital players.
Yet after the fizz around startups deflated after the pandemic, the fund needs to show it hasn’t overpaid for firms, the people said, who asked not to be named discussing the strategy shift.
“Like any other fund, Mubadala has a return expectation,” Lawrence Leuschner, chief executive officer at Mubadala-backed Tier Mobility told Bloomberg News. “In downturn times like 2023 to 2024, Mubadala is also concerned with recovering investments made at a high price in 2021 to 2022.”
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