Earlybird, the venture capital firm with an investment portfolio based in Europe, announced the $100 million first close of its fourth venture fund. That’s about the half way point for their target sum of $200 million, and brings the total amount of capital Earlybird handled since its foundation in 1997 to $700 million.

The new fund neatly ties in with the VC’s name, dedicated to discovering early-stage startups in the European IT space, specifically in German-speaking nations. Earlybird says that it’s taking this direction because Germany’s capital is supposedly the fastest growing entrepreneurial hub behind Silicon Valley, which translates into a bounty of prospective investments.

“We are deeply committed to founder success and in helping entrepreneurs build tomorrow’s category leaders. In addition to maintaining our Continental investment focus, we plan to significantly add to our seven existing portfolio investments in Berlin, which has become a nourishing ground for global tech companies.” highlights Christian Nagel, Managing Partner at Earlybird.”

The number of geographical hotspots in the IT space is growing at a global scale, but not as fast as some of the newer investment segments. Cloud and mobile seem to occupy very high spots in the VC charter.

Late last month CloudLock, a company that makes a security management platform, raised $8.7 million in a second round of funding led by Ascent Venture Partners. Cedar Fund, which participated in the first round, also chipped in this time.

Next up is Mobiles Republic, an app developer that also managed to gain investors’ attention with its portfolio, in addition to some solid capital. The company received $3 million in a first round of financing, which it will use to strengthen its publisher relations.