Vincent Gouedard

What do you need to be top quartile as a SaaS company in Europe? Sébastien Le Roy started to share the results of the Serena European SaaS benchmark during #Saastr Europa this week. Great way to quickly check whether you’re on track for a next VC round or simply what you have to improve. More results coming soon with the whole report.

33

1 commentaire

CFOs of Series A and B startups: join us for a fireside chat with Deel CFO, Philippe Bouaziz on Tues, Nov 12, 9a PT / 12p ET (virtual). Learn how Philippe and his team supported Deel’s hypergrowth and how startups should think about the CFO role, including cost management, sales automation, staffing, and more! https://lnkd.in/gAGQsAs6 #cfo #startups #costmanagement

27

Belgian-Swiss startup Predikt, co-founded by Nick Vandesype, Samuel Kolb, and Vincent Vercruyssen, has raised €750K in a pre-seed funding round to enhance its AI-driven financial forecasting platform. Predikt provides CFOs and finance teams in large companies and multinationals with advanced predictive models, combining internal data with over 10 million macroeconomic indicators like global commodity prices and inflation rates. This €750,000 pre-seed round includes investments from notable entrepreneurs such as Louis Jonckheere (Wintercircus Ghent, Showpad), Joris Van Der Gucht (Silverfin), Jorn Vanysacker and Gilles Mattelin (Henchman, part of LexisNexis), Matthias Geeroms (Lighthouse), along with support from global consulting agency Keyrus. The funding will accelerate Predikt’s platform development, with a focus on expanding usability and marketing efforts both locally and internationally. Ilgin Sogut Sébastien Raeymaekers Bernard Hazard Wim Imans Eije Wiersema Maud Vermeulen Jort Cuperus Dirk Lievens Andy Gijbels, PhD Dirk Vanbeveren David Cnoops Merel Van De Wiele Klest Dedja

8

A must read for every founder (and investor) in B2B marketplaces. ⤵️ All credits to Fabrice Grinda + FJ Labs 👏🏽 https://lnkd.in/eB7uGzyH #firstdegree #founders #investors #whyrelationshipsmatter
#alwaysbelearning #sharingknowledge

1

€25M, to build the one finance platform to rule them all. Proud to be partner of Pauline Glikman and Joseph A. from Day 0! When we first invested in Payflows, there were many other FinTech SaaS startups focusing on individual pain points felt by CFOs and their teams. Some of these companies try to improve accounts payable or procurement. Others tackle cash management or try to modernize the payment stack. Payflows stands apart by offering this and more as modules within an automated platform bigger than the sum of its parts. Each module can be purchased and deployed independently, but the offering becomes much more powerful when all the pieces of the puzzle are combined.   We partnered with Payflows team on their €5M Seed round, together with Ribbit Capital - all thanks to an intro from my friend Salomon Aiach, GP at Origins Fund. Their product quickly turned out to be such a customer hit that they never had time to announce the round. Fast forward one year. Customers include both public enterprise companies as well as growth-stage tech companies like Ornikar, Spendesk, and Swile and Podimo. Welcome Balderton Capital in today’s combined €25M funding round! In the comments, the story on Les Echos and an in-depth piece on why we invested. Can't wait to continue seeing the ultimate financial automation platform come together! (Photo by Samuel Sotto)

279

17 commentaires

For all those in scale-up, 25 mins of listening to Seb is well worth it. A really clear set of priorities and realities of growing (and turning around) scale-ups. https://lnkd.in/esnuxRKr

8

Time to step up Germany 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 Corporations have pledged to invest €15bn in France at the “Choose France” summit — an annual event held since 2018 to facilitate foreign investments in the country. A large chunk of the money will be dedicated to AI. Microsoft stole the show after announcing its largest investment in France to date, a €4bn cash envelope to build more data centres — and expand existing ones — across the country by the end of 2025. The focus is on increasing the capacity of GPUs, which are needed to run large AI models. Amazon also announced that it’ll invest €1.2bn to further develop its French cloud and AI infrastructure. Quantum computing was also on the agenda. IBM pledged to invest €45m to expand the company’s research efforts in France. Up to 50 quantum researchers and engineers will be recruited in the country in the next year.

39

4 commentaires

There a fewer and fewer public companies.  They were +8000 in the US in 1996 and are now only 4642.  That’s down 43%. How did this happened? You can explain this in many ways :  The regulation makes it increasingly difficult for a company to IPO VC & PE have be on the rise for the last decade Acquisitions are also on the rise. To give you a snapshot : 870 publics companies were acquired by one of the magnificient seven (google, apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla and Nvidia) And what’s the consequence? More and more companies, facing difficulties by IPO are drawn to VC & PE were there are more and more investors. Even though the private market lack transparency and available data, VC and PE firms have been working on tools to obtain data in ordre to make better investment décision. It’s the case for Earlybird or EQT Ventures. And also a lot of start-ups that are now working to create tools to help VC in their decision making process. So now the question is : will private markets one day have a sufficient data level for investors to make as informed decision as they would in public markets ? On my side I truly believe that in the upcoming years, we'll see the first quants VC. If you want to read some more : https://lnkd.in/eKFZuyeE

6

🚀 For the last 6 months, we've been working on a new programme to accelerate VCs raising their next fund... 🎙️ I am delighted to announce we are now live! Applications are now open to participate in the first programme for emerging VC managers based in Europe, providing fundraising workshops from fundraising experts, LP connections and world-class mentoring. We kick off the first cohort of 15 - 20 VCs in Q1 2025. 🧐 Fundraising is hard. Hard for founders. Even harder for VCs. There is a vacuum of fundraising support for funds, and there's never been a more difficult time to get one off the ground... So what do participating funds receive? 1️⃣ Warm introductions to Limited Partners and Family Offices 2️⃣ Fundraising templates 3️⃣ 10+ hours of world-class mentoring 4️⃣ Content delivered through workshops with a focus on fundraising 5️⃣ Strong peer community 6️⃣ Opportunity of an LP commit from our network Who are the mentors? 👥 VC mentors include founding partners from some of the most successful VCs in Europe such as LocalGlobe, Dawn Capital, Hoxton Ventures, Partech, Heartcore, Speedinvest, and many more. Collectively, they have raised over $11bn across 80 funds 🤯 👥 LP mentors include investors from some of the most active Limited Partners such as the BBB, KfW, Isomer and many more. Who is the programme for? 🚀 Emerging VCs (broadly those raising Funds I - III) based in Europe 💰 We expect applicants to already be exceptional investors, we will focus on making them exceptional fundraisers. How much does it cost? 💰 👉 It's completely free! With no hidden costs. We want to avoid selection bias and level the playing field for under-represented managers What is the time commitment? ⏲️ 👉 Designed to fit a General Partner's busy schedule, participants will attend at least 3 LP networking events, 6 days of high-impact workshops over a 3-month period and receive 10 hours of mentoring. How to apply? 🎯 👉 You can learn more & apply directly from our website 👉 All those applying will receive access to LP investor lists, fundraising templates and exclusive benefits from our partners. How will we select the funds? ⚖️ With the help of Blue Future Partners, our fund selection partner, we will select VCs with a differentiated strategy, a partner team with deep domain experience, and those that we believe will most likely become the next generation of top-tier funds. 🎗️ I researched and dilligenced all the VC service providers I was recommended, to select partners with a track record of supporting the Emerging Manager community. This programme would not have been possible without the support of: HFL as our fund admin partner 📕 Osborne Clarke as our legal partner 📃 Sage as our technology partner 🧑‍💻 Ballou as our PR partner 🎤 Leela Capital Regulatory Solutions as our regulatory partner 𝍍 Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers as our accounting partner 🧾

653

112 commentaires

I simply can't wait for this ! You are Invited to Meet The Entrepreneur Who Turned Startups into Exits -Not Once, but 12 TIMES! ✨ This Monday - a Virtual Session with *International Expert Gregory shepard. 🌎* The Webinar Will Provide Insights On: -EXACT Pitfalls That Kill 90% of Startups -The 7-Phase Methodology That Works -Insider Secrets to Attracting Investors -Proven Strategies for Fundraising Arieli Capital *Register Now:

7

1 commentaire

💥 Linkup annonces a 3M€ funding round to plug LLMs to high-quality content.    Much like the music industry before Spotify, AI applications today face hurdles in accessing quality content. In the early 2000s, people often turned to platforms like Pirate Bay to download music, but that came with legal risks, poor sound quality, and artists missing out on fair compensation. Similarly, today many AI tools depend on existing web frameworks like search engines and web scraping to collect information.   However, as the AI landscape evolves, these methods are proving less efficient and raising new concerns around legal compliance and fair use of copyrighted content.   Linkup aims to solve this problem by taking a new approach with premium content providers with both a legal and ethical consideration.   Delighted to support this top-notch team Philippe Mizrahi, Denis Charrier, Boris Toledano alongside Seedcamp, Motier Ventures, Kima Ventures OPRTRS CLUB and amazing BAs ! cc Sia Houchangnia, Nicolas Essayan, Christophe Raynaud, Noé Gersanois, Chloe Timsit, Alix François-Poncet, Axeleo Capital (AXC)

114

5 commentaires

Tomorrow I’m lucky to be hosting a panel with three exceptional founders: - Gilles Gaillard - Co-founder of Animaj, raised 100m EUR (in equity and debt) in 2023 to build an AI-powered animation studio that counts 𝗮 stunning 15 billion (!) YouTube views per year. Animaj acquires animation and cartoon franchises to turn them into digital-first content and amplifies their distribution using AI. - Baptiste Jamin - Co-founder of Crisp IM, 42 alumni, also can be called the “King of Bootstrap”. He started building chatbots in 2015, 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗼𝗹. Crisp centralises all customer interactions through live chat, chatbots, and a shared inbox. Today Crisp serves over 600,000 companies without raising any funds. - Vincent SIMON - Co-founder of Relationchips and founder of Simundia. Vincent is a serial entrepreneur & investor who founded a coaching platform that raised over 15m EUR & is currently working on a no-code sales workflow platform. What do they have in common? They started their career as freelancers and worked their way up to become highly successful entrepreneurs. 👉 Join us at Le Wagon tomorrow at 7pm to hear their story. We’ll also host a networking session for you to meet people from our community who are working on projects that might interest you. 🔗Link to register in the comments.

41

2 commentaires

From missing payroll 27 times to making over 500 investments! Meet Fabrice Grinda, named No. 1 Angel Investor by Forbes, who has made over $300 million in exits from over 700 investments! Fabrice began his entrepreneurial journey in 1998 by co-founding Aucland in France. In 1999, he raised $18M from Bernard Arnault, a venture fund luxury-goods magnate in exchange for 51% of the company. Later in 2000, Fabrice sold the rest to his fund. Fabrice founded Zingy in 2001, a mobile media startup. Despite facing early struggles and missing payroll 27 times, he finally succeeded when the company’s revenue scaled to $200M in 2004. Later, he sold Zingy for $80M to a Japanese media conglomerate ForSide. In 2006, Fabrice co-founded OLX with Alec Oxenford, which became one of the largest classified sites in the world with over 200 million monthly unique visitors. In 2010, the South African group Naspers Limited acquired it. Soon, Fabrice found a yearning for angel investing and building startups. He partnered with Jose Marin to jointly evaluate angel investment opportunities, and launched FJ Labs, a VC firm, to further pool the startup investment activities. Earlier, when they made around 178 investments, they received a 5.5x average return on 31 profitable exits. Among his angel investments are: Airbnb Alibaba Group Dropbox Palantir Technologies viagogo Wikimarket Uber Parking Panda To date, Fabrice, through FJ Labs, has made over 1000 startup investments and over 300 exits with an impressive realized 39-40% IRR. Fabrice’s portfolio allocation is 20% cash, 70% early-stage tech startups, and 10% real estate. As a serial angel investor, Fabrice and his team analyze over 100 companies weekly and make new investments every 15 days. His investment ticket size remains around $10k to $300k. He decides whether to invest or not based on four criteria: -The team -The pitch (market size & business model) -The product -The commercials Would you allocate 70% of your assets to startups? TDV Partners #angelinvesting #finance #investing #wealthcreation #ujwalsutaria #tdvpartners

30

1 commentaire

📣 Major Update for French Founders and VC Firms! 🚀 Versible eu We have built a full database of all the private funds investing in #Seed, #SeriesA, and #SeriesB across nearly every sector in the #French ecosystem. As part of our mission, we are developing the next generation of venture capital management software. Our goal is to streamline the fundraising process and enhance investor relations for founders and investors throughout Europe. Each of our initiatives aims to shine a spotlight on the hardworking individuals who are shaping the future of the world. Stay tuned for Monday 27th. #Venturecapital #Seed #Lafrenchtech #LegalTech #Agriculture #Mobility #Deeptech #FoodTech #InsurTech #BioTech #HealthTech #Realestate #Web3

11

1 commentaire

💸 Our business angel cash-out guide is out! 💸 I put together these 4 rules, compiling years of experience advising the best VC investors in managing their portfolio and their exit strategies ( 👋 Romain Afflelou Jean-David BENICHOU Jeremie Attali Marc Menasé Patrice Giami Fanny MIARA) For early-stage investors, finding the right monetization path is a significant challenge. The best, and most complex, option is selling shares on the secondary market. I put together this guide to help early stage venture investors maximize their returns, structured around four major rules RULE 👍 : Prepare this transaction strategy ahead of time RULE 🤘 : Find the right timing to do so RULE 👌 : Price their shares on the secondary market RULE 👊 : Efficiently manage your secondary process You can access the full version of the guide on https://lnkd.in/eqY2XQ_M If you want advice on how to maximize your portfolio I am more than happy to seat with you and discuss your strategy - just book a timeslot in my agenda https://lnkd.in/eFCPXU_g #venturecapital #businessangel #ROI #secondary #portfoliomanagement

41

2 commentaires

🚀 How’s French Tech Doing in 2024? | Insights from the latest France Digitale x EY Barometer Reposted from: Joseph Landauer On September 11, 2024, France Digitale and EY released their annual report, and despite the tough economic climate, there’s plenty to be proud of! French startups are proving they’re ready to face the challenges head-on. Here are five key takeaways: 1️⃣ 15,000 startups are thriving in France, with 3,500 new ones launched in just the past year! So, who said French Tech was slowing down? 2️⃣ 1.3 million jobs created by these startups. Yes, you read that right. While hiring may slow down in 2024, we’re still pushing forward 💪. 3️⃣ Funding crunch: Big deals are happening, but smaller rounds are struggling. VCs are searching for ways to keep the ecosystem thriving. 4️⃣ Global reach: French startups are expanding fast, with 27% revenue growth internationally. Europe is our playground 🌍. 5️⃣ AI dominance: Whether it’s internal tools or product offerings, AI is everywhere. But competition with global giants is fierce 🤖. So, what’s next? French Tech is holding strong, but continued support from policymakers is crucial for future success. Innovation, taxation, and European regulations will be pivotal in the coming years. A big thank you to France Digitale and EY for this report! 🙏 Looking forward to seeing many of you at #FDDAY on September 18. Let’s keep pushing boundaries! 🙌 #FrenchTech #Innovation #Startups

166

3 commentaires

Maybe you are WRONG 🤔??? … if you think implementing Automated Consolidation and Reporting in your Group or Investment Fund is too complex. There are 3 main myths I face again and again. Maybe you see something familiar here 😊: 🌀 Myth 1  “We have various industries with different, industry-specific charts of accounts, making unified format reporting impossible”. Reality: It’s simpler than you think! 😊 In the reporting system, create a Group Chart of Accounts (COA) that accommodates all the industries within your Group or Investment fund – whether it’s lending, construction, retail, or others. Map Local accounts to the respective accounts in the Group COA. 👉 For a detailed guide, there is an article “Designing a Powerful Group COA for Automated Consolidation” on Emfino Blog page. https://lnkd.in/eHcKZ67M 🌀 Myth 2 “We need to implement the Group COA across all entities before we can start automated reporting.” Reality: Not necessarily! 😊 Local COAs can be too detailed and represent Local requirements irrelevant to Group reporting or consolidation. The better approach is to design a powerful Group COA and guide your entities on the level of detail required. If Local COAs are less detailed, encourage the addition of new accounts and more detailed transactions. If Local COAs are more detailed – it is ok, just map multiple local accounts to a single Group account where necessary. 👉 Explore more in the “Successful Implementation of a New Group COA Across the Group” blog post. https://lnkd.in/dVntCh3t 🌀 Myth 3 “We need one global ERP system for all companies to proceed with automated consolidation.” Reality: If it’s not broken, don’t fix it! 😊 If your companies are satisfied with their current accounting or ERP systems and they are well-customized, there is no need to switch. Reporting systems allow imports from various accounting and ERP systems. In Emfino, the data sources can differ for each legal entity – just provide full transaction data and Trial Balance reports.   👉 Curious about whether you really need a single global ERP? Read the article “Do We Really Need Single Global ERP?” for more insights. https://lnkd.in/dherwZrY

21