Frst, the Paris-based VC firm with no vowel in its identify, is within the means of elevating its second fund. The firm has already reached a first closing of €72 million (practically $80 million at at the moment’s change fee).
And if there’s one factor to say about this new fund is that it’s enterprise as standard for Frst. As the identify suggests, Frst goals to be the first VC firm to spend money on a tech startup.
Frst even tells me that round half of the VC firm’s time period sheets are despatched earlier than the startups are integrated. The firm has determined to maintain the very same system with some contemporary capital to take a position over the following few years.
The staff led by Pierre Entremont and Bruno Raillard initially met after they had been working for Otium Venture as a part of Pierre-Edouard Stérin’s household workplace. In 2019, the staff created its own VC firm and raised the preliminary Frst fund (referred to as Frst 2). At the time, Frst raised €90 million (practically $100 million at at the moment’s change fee).
With at the moment’s new fund referred to as Frst 3, the funding firm expects to achieve the higher restrict of €100 million ($110 million). Frst has already secured funding from the European Investment Fund, Bpifrance’s Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, Axa Venture Partners and Isomer. Several particular person buyers are additionally investing within the fund itself, akin to entrepreneurs working for Payfit, Owkin, Shippeo, Pigment, Electra, Supercell, Wolt, Aiven and Homa Games.
While Frst doesn’t concentrate on one vertical specifically, the firm believes that there will likely be loads of attention-grabbing funding alternatives within the coming years because of the rise of synthetic intelligence.
“The rapid developments observed in the field of Artificial Intelligence over the past few months and the disruptions they are creating make an extremely favorable context for startups. From work to medicine, defense, education, or natural resource management, the economy and society as a whole are preparing to undergo unprecedented changes,” Pierre Entremont stated in a press release.
Overall, in case you embody Otium Venture’s authentic €44 million fund, the Frst staff has greater than €200 million of property managed or suggested ($219 million). With this metric, Frst says that it’s now the most important seed fund centered on French startups particularly.
“France is particularly well positioned to play a leading role in this upcoming revolution, notably due to its production of top technical talent. This is why Artificial Intelligence has always been a very present theme in our investments, with, for instance, Owkin or Doctrine 7 years ago. We have also already made several investments with Frst 3 in teams with remarkable technical quality,” Bruno Raillard stated in a press release.
The Frst staff has invested in dozens of startups, akin to Pigment, Electra, Poolside, Doctrine, Payfit, Shippeo and Owkin. With its new fund, it plans to take a position between €1 million and €3 million in round 30 corporations.
