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

In case you are planning to begin a brand new enterprise in France, Denmark or Sweden, there’s a new seed fund in search of your pitch. Emblem in the present day introduced that it has raised roughly $54 million (€50 million) for a brand new European seed fund. And that is simply the primary shutdown – the agency expects to boost $80 million (€75 million) by the tip of the yr.

The logo was created by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan and Guillaume Durao. It is not the primary time Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan’s title has appeared on TechCrunch, as he’s an entrepreneur himself. I first described the Clustree initiative in 2014.

It was a expertise administration and HR platform acquired by Clustree. Optional Core Stone. Some enterprise angels, comparable to Frédéric Montagnon and Florian Douetteau, have been very influential in Clustree’s run, so after promoting Clustree, he began investing in startups himself.

Guillaume Durao has been an investor for a number of years. He labored for mangrove Capital Companions and Idinvest (the VC agency now a part of Eurazeo). Whereas each companions are French nationals, Durao has labored in Denmark and is sort of energetic within the Scandinavian tech ecosystem. He additionally invested a few of his personal cash as a enterprise angel.

Durao and de Raphélis Soissan have constructed an attention-grabbing portfolio of angel investments earlier than launching Emblem. They invested within the crypto buying and selling card recreation Sorarepet insurance coverage startup Plunge and cultivated meat firm gourmet. Along with these French startups, additionally they invested growth blocks And all the sauce in Denmark, Arc Capital And Goals in Sweden and extra.

The subsequent logical step is an acceptable seed fund with extra capital. Emblem seeks to steer or co-lead seed investments with a typical funding of €500,000 to €3 million. Total, the agency is seeking to put money into 25 to 30 tech firms with startup funding.

Whereas the logo lists a number of industries comparable to AI, B2B SaaS, fintech, future of labor, and digital well being, the corporate’s focus isn’t on particular industries. A basic expertise seed fund.

As for the agency’s backers, Emblem has managed to boost funds from Danish state fund Vaekstfonden, institutional buyers like Edenred, a number of French and Scandinavian household places of work, and tech entrepreneurs in search of funding alternatives. A few of the entrepreneurs who’ve invested in Emblem embrace the founders of 3shape, Dixa, Falcon, Kantox, Peakon, PeopleDoc, Planday, Pleo, Qonto, Silae, Spendesk, Swile and Zendesk.

There are two issues that set Emblem other than different French VC firms. First, it focuses on French ventures, but additionally Swedish and Danish ventures. Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan mentioned: “Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm are the three most attention-grabbing enterprise facilities after London and Berlin.”

Second, Emblem doesn’t wish to be an early-stage fund that invests in Collection A rounds and past. In fact, the agency will allocate a few of its funds to ongoing investments in current portfolio firms – however that is it.

“We may have a particular give attention to the seed. “We’re not going to boost a much bigger fund and begin investing in Collection A rounds,” mentioned De Raphélis Soissan.

A brand new wave of micro funds in Europe

It is laborious to explain what a microphone is. As many enterprise capital companies begin elevating bigger and bigger funds, every little thing else begins to appear like a micro-fund.

The logo is bigger than a microphone. Nonetheless, there are a handful of people that have raised new funds with €5 million, €10 million or €15 million underneath their administration. Simply as many profitable buyers began investing in VC with their very own micro funds within the US a number of years in the past, the identical pattern is now rising in Europe.

Throughout my assembly with Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan, we talked about a few of these new funds. For instance, Anthony Danon and Carmen Alfonso Rico, Cocoa. Gloria Baeuerlein He is behind a brand new fund known as Past Capital. Pietro Invernizzi It’s presently elevating its personal funds.

I’ve additionally coated a number of the huge funds like Resonance, Ovni Capital, and Galion.exe which have popped up over the previous yr. After which, additionally Teampact Initiatives And origins.

Whereas we’re presently going by way of a tech regression, it is attention-grabbing to see it is on the market Extra Choices on the subject of early-stage financing in Europe. And every fund has its personal funding thesis. These rising companions also can leverage their very own networks, which ought to create extra alternatives for the expertise ecosystem as an entire.