Bonjour Eurazeo!
Venture is a people business, and I’ve loved working with my team at OMERS… but when the chance unexpectedly came to start Eurazeo’s Early Stage Venture Capital team in London, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. The combination of getting in the weeds to start something new, hiring a team, and helping to build a European franchise with wonderful investors with a 20 year track record was too hard to resist. So I’m delighted to announce that I have joined the Eurazeo Venture team as a Managing Director in London as of Sept 1.
Stage & Sectors
As a generalist VC firm, we primarly invest at Series A & B in:
- Entreprise & SMB software
- Fintech & Insurtech
- Digital Health
- Adtech & Martech
- Ecommerce & Marketplaces
So if you’re building a tech enabled business in those sectors, please get in touch :-)
A Storied Portfolio
Eurazeo is the new name of the ex-IDinvest team. Originally from Paris, they are some of the best venture investors in Europe (the best ones in 2019 actually — at least according to Crunchbase!) with a storied portfolio that includes Criteo, SoRare, WeFox, Grab, Vestiare Collective, Bird, and many others. In fact, 17 of the Next 40 and 25 of the Fastrack 120 are in the portfolio, forming a rich and cross-fertile ecosystem.
Exceptional Support
Eurazeo has a portfolio of $23B across the group, tightly knit across venture, growth and buy out (and private debt and real estate and infra…) . This depth allows them to support companies from series A all the way through to exit (42 so far!). A case in point, they invested pre-seed in Criteo for a 24% stake and still held 23% at floatation. They also have an extraordinary network of operational support people across their 11 offices, especially accross talent and sales.
A Real Commitment to Sustainability and Inclusion
Although not an ESG fund, Eurazeo cares deeply about sustainability and inclusion. The are rated A+ by the PIR, a UN-supported network of investors who incorporate ESG principles into their investment decisions, are participants to the UN Global Compact, and are signatories to The Shift’s Manifesto to Decarbonise Europe. And while there is always more to do, it’s not just lip service: as a group, Eurazeo’s carbon footprint was down 27% in 2020 compared to the previous year.
On the inclusion side, they have made public commitments to Sista 2.0 in order to fund more female entrepreneurs. Eurazeo’s management team is 44% female — and of course, so is our CEO.
Long Europe
Per Dealroom, Euopean venture investment has increased 5.5x from 2010 to 2020, with $41B invested in venture and growth last year. There were 22 $1B+venture backed tech unicorns in Europe in 2014 — there are more than 100 today; and whereas only 3 european countries had attracted more than $1B of venture capital per year by 2014, Europe now has 7 “unicountries”. As the first generation of European startups enrich and mature and the second generation of early employees and founders start new business, there’s never been a better time to invest across Europe.
The UK continues to be one of Europe’s richest startup ecosystem, and Eurazeo has been investing here for years, with portfolio companies like SecretEscapes, ThoughtMachine, OnFido, Lifebit, Ogury and others. And now, with a new team on the ground in London, we’re only just getting started!
Farewell, OMERS Ventures
My ex-team at OMERS have been beyond gracious as I moved on, and I know we will be sitting on cap tables and working together in the future. I couldn’t be more grateful to them, and to the wonderful entrepreneurs we’ve worked with.
And now, en avant marche!
