Index has raised an additional $550 million to invest in US, European, and Israeli tech startups

Index Ventures - the venture capital fund that has backed the likes of Facebook, Dropbox and Deliveroo - has raised $550 million (£376 million) to invest in US, European, and Israeli technology startups.

The latest fund (Index's eighth) builds on the $700 million (£478 million) fund that Index raised in 2015. Index, which is co-headquartered in London and San Francisco, said it now has a total of $1.25 billion (£855 million) at its disposal, which it will use to back seed, venture and growth stage companies.

The latest funding round comes less than a month after Index appointed former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo as venture partner.

Index claims that businesses in its portfolio generated combined revenues of $9.2 billion (£6.2 billion) in 2015 and employ 35,000 people. They're also recruiting for 2,700 new positions.

In the last two years, eight companies in Index's portfolio went public, including Pure Storage, King, Just Eat, and Hortonworks. Index has also invested in well-known startups such as BlaBlaCar, Funding Circle, Blaze, Citymapper, Slack, and SoundCloud.