Nicolas Hourcard, CFA

I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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Soooo pretty much how French VC has always been. VC firms suing each other. LPs firing GPs. LPs taking funds back. VCs suing entrepreneurs. It's always been a dramatic scene. 🇫🇷 🐓🍷🥖 https://lnkd.in/eK8JbgDA #vc #venrurecapital #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #innovation #money #business

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Great to see shipshape.vc data in FF News | Fintech Finance. Thank you Hannah Duncan for the shout-out. Early this year we analysed what investors were searching for on shipshape.vc, and what companies seeking capital were looking for. Read more about it 👉 https://lnkd.in/ewXaRpQf #capitalraising #startups #fundraising #founders #venturecapital #investors #vc #vcfunding #technology #startup #tech 

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What are some valuable insights into the European startup ecosystem? I recently had the opportunity to read an insightful discussion between two established investors in the European venture space - Saul Klein of LocalGlobe and Raluca Ragab of Eurazeo. At the TechCrunch StrictlyVC event in London, they generously shared their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges facing founders and investors across the continent (for source or entire article see comment). While the fundamentals of starting and scaling a high-growth business remain similar everywhere, Saul and Raluca highlighted some key differences that impact the European landscape. One aspect they discussed was the relative lack of liquidity events compared to the U.S., which makes returns riskier for investors. With fewer large exits, it can be more difficult to attract later stage capital. 🔝 At the same time, both highlighted many promising qualities of Europe's startup hubs. Talent pools are deep, and multinational collaboration comes naturally to entrepreneurs in the region. Government programs also aim to foster innovation, and COVID has accelerated the digital transformation of traditional industries 🏭. However, Klein and Ragab's perspectives underscore the work that still needs to be done in Europe to catch up with the U.S. exit environment. Their balanced view got me thinking about how to strengthen Europe's network effects in the long term. As leaders seeking to build an inclusive world of shared prosperity, what innovative strategies could help connect the continent's many vibrant startup ecosystems? I'd love to hear your thoughts. #D11ZVentures #techcrunch #FutureOfTech #VCInsights

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ANNOUNCEMENT: We just launched our diversified fund investments feature on Mainshares 😲 Starting today, accredited investors can invest in SMB acquisitions managed by sophisticated investors via Mainshares I’ve been telling you all that we’re here to change the game of SMB investing for the better, and this is a huge step for us. Before, SMB investing was commonly done on a deal-by-deal basis, and depending on who you are, you may not have the time to spend parsing out every deal. Well now, investors on our platform have access to deals across a variety of industries, geographies, and deal structures in this (traditionally) inaccessible and fragmented asset class. Invest in ~20 SMBs, all with a single investment. Join the Mainshares train before we take off like a 🚀 Link below for diversified SMB investing 👇

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I’m pleased to have contributed to Arianee’s position paper, "From A Production-Based to A Service-Based Economy: The Role of Tokenization in Decoupling Growth." This insightful paper tackles a topic close to my heart. This paper outlines numerous practical strategies for companies to progress on tackling overproduction while creating new economic opportunities. Thank you Arianee, Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel and of course my friend Francois Souchet for the opportunity to collaborate. #circulareconomy #technology #circularbusinessmodels #sustainability

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🚀 Major Boost for European Tech Start-Ups London-based Balderton Capital has secured a massive $1.3 billion in the largest-ever venture fund focused on European start-ups. This significant capital injection includes $615 million for early-stage investments and $685 million for growth-stage companies, highlighting growing confidence in Europe's thriving tech ecosystem. 💡 Balderton, known for backing successful ventures like Revolut and Wayve, is committed exclusively to European start-ups, with investments spread across the UK, France, Germany, and Sweden. The firm operates offices in London, Paris, and Berlin, strategically positioning itself to tap into the region's vibrant innovation hubs. 🏙️ This fundraising milestone is a powerful signal of exciting opportunities ahead for European tech innovation! 🎉 #EuropeanInnovation #TechNews #BaldertonCapital #InvestInEurope

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Europe's tech market has some catching up to do. #eu #techmarket #technology #techcompanies #marketvalue #financing #growthcapital #scaleups #commercialisation

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NEW: Two former Luko employees have raised €25m in funding for their automated financial management startup Payflows. Balderton Capital led the Series A round, which also saw participation from existing investors Ribbit Capital, Headline, 20VC and French shopping mall Galeries Lafayette’s family office. Payflows’ funding round is the latest financing for fintechs hoping to make CFOs’ jobs easier. The investor focus on the office of the CFO niche is the latest sign that it’s B2B and not consumer that’s in vogue in today’s fintech market. In the first quarter of this year, European fintechs catering to business clients raised $2.1bn — close to double of the $1.2bn funnelled towards consumer fintechs according to Dealroom.co stats. https://lnkd.in/ekqyUT_V

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MFD (aka Manufactured) is looking for a Head of Finance. This isn't your average Series A/B finance role, managing runway and a lot of critical admin. Finance is at the core of MFD, because lending to small and medium-sized businesses requires a level of financial precision that most startups can't manage. In fact, lending isn't typically accessible to these customers (outside of paying an insane interest rate). If you want to change the world by making the SMB survival rate skyrocket, come help us re-invent lending (and their inventory + manufacturing process) to fuel them.

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The fall of seat based & the the rise of usage based pricing is a major trend in SaaS. Hear more about it from the experts at m3ter at Money20/20.

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Yesterday I had a great conversation with Alexandre Wibaux , Alex Ferrara and Christopher Britton in a panel discussing common myths for European scale ups seeking to crack the US market. Three ‘myths’ we discussed particularly resonated with me based on our journey at Beamery : 1️⃣ Myth: You need to be a scaled European success story before launching in the US. Reality: Many successful EU companies launched in the US very early in their journey. At Beamery we launched our first commercial team in the US - a team of 5 in Austin - when our global team was just 14 people (most of whom were engineers). 2️⃣ Myth: You cannot hire the best technical talent in Europe. Reality: Top talent exists all over the world, with Europe increasingly becoming one of the best places in the world to build engineering teams - at Beamery we have found this to be particularly true in the AI focused space we operate in. 3️⃣ Myth: US is a very different market to sell and operate in and requires a different commercial and regulatory approach. Reality: While there are lots of differences between each market and country, in our experience at Beamery the majority of market specific nuances have converged over the past 10 years. In B2B SaaS in particular it is now far easier both for US companies to launch in Europe and for European companies to launch in the US, as well as to take a more global approach at an early stage : commercial , regulatory and hiring barriers are all becoming easier to navigate. Nonetheless, early stage companies and founders have to be very mindful of the many challenges of expanding to new markets - some that may be specific to their business model, others (such as building a global culture and operating across time zones) that are universal. For those reading this that have experienced any other challenges of operating in a globally scaling start up, I’d love to hear from you - please reach out or comment below P.s. Thank you Lazard for inviting me to this great panel and for hosting such a fantastic T500 conference!

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Great insights from Adam Agius on what to consider when raising debt for a search fund buyout. Most relevant to the UK market, but a worthwhile read for all searchers. There's more debt capital keen to support search acquisitions than ever before, but approaching it naively can be very costly...

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🚨 EGYM attracts nearly $200 million in primary funding from L Catterton and Meritech at a valuation of over $1 billion 🚨 I'm excited to announce that EGYM / EGYM | DACH / EGYM Wellpass has recently secured nearly $200 million in primary funding from L Catterton and Meritech Capital, valuing the company at over $1 billion. The fundraise last year with Affinity Partners marked a significant achievement for EGYM: we were profitable, debt-free, and maintained a big chunk of the fundraise in the bank, all while experiencing rapid growth. That meant that we no longer relied on investor funds for survival; instead, we could take the time to focus on building relationships with the best possible investors to support EGYM's mission. Phew 😅 that was quite a relief as a founder, and the next round ended up happening much faster than expected. We are a fitness technology company: In my research, I identified L Catterton as the ideal partner for EGYM on the fitness and health side, given that they are the world's largest fitness investor. For the technology piece, Meritech Capital stood out as the best fit, given its deep understanding of SaaS and its success stories with leading companies like Facebook and Salesforce. Therefore, I started reaching out to both firms with the intent of building a long-term relationship, which has turned into a round of funding. I had the pleasure of meeting Marc Magliacano, a Managing Partner in the L Catterton Flagship Fund, and was impressed by his extensive experience in fitness investing. His deep industry knowledge will be invaluable as he joins our board. On the Meritech side, I was equally impressed by Paul Madera, a co-founder of the firm. His sharp questions and focus on the important elements of our business convinced me that he is the right fit for EGYM. The EGYM team has earned the trust of what I consider to be the best possible investor partners for our mission to get to where we are today, and we are much more capitalized than we were planning. However, this trust now comes with even greater responsibility. Our mission to build the leading global platform at the intersection of fitness and health is not just a business goal but a commitment to driving sustainability into the world's largest market—healthcare. We are 120% dedicated to making it happen and are grateful to our existing investors for their continued support. 👋🏻 Welcome aboard, Marc and Paul. 🚀 Let's go, EGYM team!

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🚀 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 🧾

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If you are a FinTech founder or VC, you need to have a look at this We just put out a deck (link below, no login required) that has a in depth breakdown of the UK FinTech ecosystem. It includes:   - List of FinTech investors with offices in the UK - Who is investing at various stages - List of funds with "dry" powder, newly raised funds that invest in FinTech - How the UK compares to its closest rivals, Paris and Berlin - Comprehensive list of FinTech exits (200+ since 2005) - Celebrating success stories, Revolut and Transferwise ($1bln+ revenue) - How FinTech unicorns are training the next generation of entrepreneurs - UK as a magnet for equity growth capital - Early stage startups to watch - How valuations have changed over the past few years Full presentation (no paywall or login required): https://lnkd.in/e8QUEXAs Do comment if you want to see more content like this, or if you want to add anything. Kudos to 6DC partner Thomas Olszewski for creating the presentation! Investments to watch include Superhog, Banked : , Barte, Adhara, Artificial Labs, Blockpit AG, in3, Pomelo Pay, Rivero #Fintech #VentureCapital #UK

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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.

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For VI, I will modify a quote by Peter Kreeft to "We live and die; Vodafone Idea Limited died and lived!" The company has resurrected from near-death to walk into the perfect blue sky scenario where a 15-20% tariff hike is imminent across all industry players, pending AGR resolution is a given. Lastly, there is still a massive brand recall with customers who've stood by the company despite being the only telecom with no 5G! VI's stock is bolstered by a solid anchor list of long-term investors, which significantly reduces selling pressure. With a clear 12 rupee bottom, it's not far-fetched to anticipate VI reaching the 18-20 levels in the near future. It is my fundamental belief that a country as large as India needs more than 2 telecos, and #GoI will do all it takes to make this one fit rather than go back to the ventilator! #stock #stockmarket #trading #investing #money #stocks #investment #forex #finance #invest #business #trader #nifty #investor #sharemarket #daytrader #market #sensex #nse #financialfreedom #forextrading #trade #wealth #bse #daytrading #entrepreneur

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