In case you are planning to launch a brand new startup in France, Denmark or Sweden, there’s a new seed fund in search of your pitch. Logo At this time it pronounces that it has raised practically $54 million (€50 million) for a brand new European seed fund. And that is solely the primary shut – the corporate expects to lift as much as $80m (€75m) by the top of the yr.
Emblem was based by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan and Guillaume Durao. This is not the primary time Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan’s identify has appeared on Newidea as she was an entrepreneur. I coated her startup Clustree for the primary time in 2014.
Clustree was a expertise and HR administration platform that was acquired by Clustree Foundation stone upon request. Some enterprise angels like Frédéric Montagnion and Florian Duet have been instrumental in Clustree’s path, so she began investing in startups herself after promoting Clustree.
Guillaume Durao has been an investor for a number of years. He labored at Mangrove Capital Companions and Idinvest (the enterprise capital agency now a part of Eurazeo). Whereas each companions are native French, Durau has labored in Denmark and has been very lively within the Scandinavian tech ecosystem. He has additionally invested a few of his personal cash as a enterprise proprietor as nicely.
Earlier than launching Emblem, Durao and de Raphélis Soissan had already constructed an fascinating portfolio of angel investments. They invested in a cryptocurrency buying and selling card recreation sisterPet insurance coverage startup Delma and grown meat firm Gourmet. Along with these French startups, they’ve additionally invested in growblocks And All the broth in denmark, capital paper And Objectives In Sweden, and extra.
The subsequent logical step is to create an acceptable core fund with bigger capital. Emblem desires to guide or co-lead seed investments with a typical funding of between €500,000 and €3 million. General, the corporate is keen to put money into 25 to 30 know-how corporations via its seed fund.
Whereas Emblem lists a handful of sectors, akin to AI, B2B SaaS, fintech, future of labor, and digital well being, the corporate does not focus particularly on sure industries. It’s a start-up fund that makes a speciality of know-how.
As for the corporate’s backers, Emblem has managed to lift cash from Danish sovereign fund Vaekstfonden, institutional traders like Edenred, a number of household places of work in France and the Nordic international locations, in addition to tech entrepreneurs in search of funding alternatives. Entrepreneurs who’ve invested in Emblem embrace the founders of 3shape, Dixa, Falcon, Kantox, Peakon, PeopleDoc, Planday, Pleo, Qonto, Silae, Spendesk, Swile, and Zendesk.
Two issues set Emblem other than different French enterprise capital corporations. Focuses first on French startups, in addition to Swedish and Danish startups. “Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm are the three most fascinating hubs for startups after London and Berlin,” Benedict de Ravelles Soissan advised me.
Second, Emblem does not wish to turn into an early-stage fund that additionally invests in Collection A rounds and even later. Certain, the corporate will allocate a portion of its fund to follow-up investments in current portfolio corporations — however that is it.
“We can have a particular concentrate on seeds. The concept is that we are going to not elevate a bigger fund and begin investing within the first group rounds.”
A brand new wave of small funds in Europe
It is laborious to explain what slightly field is. As many enterprise capital corporations begin elevating an increasing number of cash, every thing else begins to appear like a small fund.
The brand is larger than the small field. However there are a number of people who elevate new funds by managing 5 million euros, 10 million euros or 15 million euros. Similar to lots of profitable traders who began investing in enterprise capital with their small cash within the US a number of years in the past, the identical development is now rising in Europe as nicely.
Throughout my dialogue with Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan, we talked about a few of these new funds. For instance, Anthony Danon and Carmen Alfonso Rico have been very lively with cacao. Gloria Bjorlin behind a brand new fund known as Past Capital. Peter Inverness He’s presently gathering his personal cash.
I’ve additionally coated a few of the large funds which have come out over the previous yr or so, like Resonance, Ovni Capital, and Galion.exe. After which, there too Teampact Ventures And assets.
Whereas we’re presently going via a technical downturn, will probably be fascinating to see extra choices in the case of early financing in Europe. Every fund has its personal funding thesis. These rising companions may also leverage their very own community, which ought to create extra alternatives for the know-how ecosystem as an entire.