Emblem is the newest European seed fund in new wave of VC funds

When you plan to launch a brand new startup in France, Denmark or Sweden, there’s a new seed fund in search of your pitch. Emblem is saying right now that it has raised almost $54 million (€50 million) for a brand new European seed fund. And that is solely the primary shut — the agency expects to lift as a lot as $80 million (€75 million) by the top of the 12 months.

Emblem was based by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan and Guillaume Durao. This isn’t the primary time Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan’s title seems on TechCrunch as she was once an entrepreneur herself. I first lined her startup Clustree again in 2014.

Clustree was a expertise administration and HR platform that was acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand. Some enterprise angels like Frédéric Montagnon and Florian Douetteau had been fairly instrumental in Clustree’s trajectory, so she began investing in startups herself after promoting Clustree.

Guillaume Durao has been an investor for a number of years. He labored for Mangrove Capital Companions and Idinvest (the VC agency that’s now a part of Eurazeo). Whereas each companions are French natives, Durao has labored in Denmark and has been fairly energetic within the Nordic tech ecosystem. He has additionally invested a few of his personal cash as a enterprise angel as effectively.

Earlier than launching Emblem, Durao and de Raphélis Soissan have already constructed an attention-grabbing portfolio of angel investments. They invested in crypto buying and selling card sport Sorare, pet insurance coverage startup Dalma and cultivated meat firm Gourmey. Along with these French startups, additionally they invested in Growblocks and All Gravy in Denmark, Ark Kapital and Targets in Sweden, and extra.

The following logical step is a correct seed fund with extra capital. Emblem needs to steer or co-lead seed investments with a typical funding ranging between €500,000 and €3 million. General, the agency needs to spend money on 25 to 30 tech corporations with its preliminary fund.

Whereas Emblem lists a number of verticals, corresponding to AI, B2B SaaS, fintech, future of labor and digital well being, the agency doesn’t have a particular concentrate on some industries. It’s a generalist tech seed fund.

As for the agency’s backers, Emblem managed to lift funds from the Danish sovereign fund Vaekstfonden, institutional buyers like Edenred, a number of French and Nordic household workplaces, in addition to tech entrepreneurs in search of funding alternatives. Among the entrepreneurs who invested in Emblem embody the founders of 3shape, Dixa, Falcon, Kantox, Peakon, PeopleDoc, Planday, Pleo, Qonto, Silae, Spendesk, Swile and Zendesk.

There are two issues that make Emblem stand out from different French VC companies. First it focuses on French startups, but in addition Swedish and Danish startups. “Paris, Copenhaguen and Stockholm are the three most attention-grabbing startup hubs after London and Berlin,” Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan informed me.

Second, Emblem doesn’t need to turn out to be an early stage fund that additionally invests in Collection A rounds and even later. Positive, the agency will allocate a portion of its fund for follow-on investments in current portfolio corporations — however that’s it.

“We’re going to have an unique concentrate on seed. The thought is that we aren’t going to lift an even bigger fund and begin investing in Collection A rounds,” de Raphélis Soissan mentioned.

A brand new wave of micro funds in Europe

It’s onerous to explain what a micro fund is. As many VC companies begin elevating greater and greater funds, every little thing else begins to seem like a micro fund.

Emblem is greater than a micro fund. However there are a handful of people elevating new funds with €5 million, €10 million or €15 million underneath administration. Similar to quite a lot of profitable buyers began VC funding with their very own micro funds within the U.S. a number of years in the past, the identical development is now rising in Europe as effectively.

Throughout my dialogue with Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan, we talked about a few of these new funds. As an example, Anthony Danon and Carmen Alfonso Rico have been fairly energetic with Cocoa. Gloria Baeuerlein is behind a brand new fund known as Past Capital. Pietro Invernizzi is presently elevating his personal fund.

I’ve additionally lined some greater funds which have popped up over the previous 12 months or so, corresponding to Resonance, Ovni Capital and Galion.exe. After which, there are additionally Teampact Ventures and Origins.

Whereas we’re presently going by way of a tech downturn, it’s attention-grabbing to see that there are extra choices in the case of early stage funding in Europe. And every fund has its personal funding thesis. These rising companions may also faucet their very own community, which ought to create extra alternatives for the tech ecosystem as an entire.