Index Ventures, the European venture capital firm that has backed technology companies including internet telephony provider Skype, has launched a €400m ($580m) fund to finance businesses further up the food-chain than those it usually targets.

The firm launched Index Ventures Growth I to address what it called “the market opportunity created by the maturation of Europe’s start-up industry and movement of traditional late-stage investors into larger deal sizes in the technology and life science sectors”.