Philippe Laffont, founder and chief investment officer of Coatue Management LLC.
Chris Goddney | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON — U.S. hedge fund Coatue Management is planning to set up a new office in Europe as part of an effort to capitalize on the continent’s growing tech industry.
The news was first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed to CNBC by a Coatue spokesperson.
“We currently have offices in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong, and we’re excited to add an office in Europe at some point in the near future,” Coatue Ventures Chairman Dan Rose told CNBC.
“We believe Europe is emerging as an important innovation hub in both the public and private markets, as evidenced by the increase in venture capital activity across the continent,” said Rose, who was previously an executive at Facebook and Amazon.
The New York-headquartered company is one of the biggest tech investors in the world and it’s been pumping billions of dollars into fast-growing companies that it believes will get even bigger.
Notable investments from the firm — founded in 1999 by Philippe Laffont and Thomas Laffont — include TikTok parent-company ByteDance, Snap and Spotify.
A source in the venture capital industry told CNBC that Coatue has been struggling to find the right people to hire in Europe, adding that the office is most likely to be in London.
“There’s a huge scarcity of talent,” the person said, asking to remain anonymous due to the nature of the discussion. Coatue declined to comment on the claim.
The anticipated arrival of Coatue in Europe comes less than a year after renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia opened a new office in London.
Several other big U.S. tech investment firms are also looking to hire people on the ground in Europe, the CNBC source said.
