For those who’re a French entrepreneur, there’s a brand new enterprise capital agency on the town. Ovni Capital is asserting a primary closing of €50 million ($54 million at at this time’s trade price) for its early-stage fund.
The agency’s two normal companions Arnaud Laurent and Augustin Sayer have already invested in a number of corporations of their earlier jobs. Laurent has labored with Didier Soucheyre to create XLR Capital and put money into startups like MWM and Onoff. He’s additionally invested in early-stage startups by way of WeSprint, a startup accelerator.
Sayer grew up within the U.S. and began his profession there. Extra not too long ago, he was a companion at Newfund Capital the place he invested in 22 totally different startups, comparable to FairMoney and Umiami.
Relating to the agency’s funding thesis, Omni Capital desires to again new startups with sturdy worldwide ambitions from day one. Based on the Ovni staff, many French entrepreneurs nonetheless take into consideration world enlargement too late. That’s why the variety of unicorns per capita is increased in Berlin or Stockholm than in France.
“Statistically, we additionally see that French startups are thrice extra more likely to increase a Sequence B in the event that they take this worldwide strategy from the beginning,” Augustin Sayer stated in an announcement.
Along with that target startups with overseas staff or startups that talk internally in English, Ovni Capital will favor deep tech startups as an alternative of platform performs, marketplaces or vertical software-as-a-service merchandise. And the VC agency plans to help entrepreneurs by bringing specialists to the board of administrators.
Ovni Capital tried to lift cash from profitable entrepreneurs as a lot as potential. General, the agency managed to persuade 50 French tech entrepreneurs to again the fund. If a few of them need to become involved in an operational method, they will symbolize Ovni Capital on the boards of portfolio corporations.
The agency plans to speculate something between €250,000 and €2 million in 30 totally different startups. In some instances, Ovni Capital will have the ability to put money into follow-on rounds as much as €4 million. The primary portolio firm is Axeptio, a person consent administration startup that not too long ago raised €3.5 million from Isai, Evolem and Ovni Capital.
