Amid rising strain on European enterprise capital to consolidate, Swiss pre-seed fund Founderful has efficiently closed its second fund at €133 million. The oversubscribed spherical, achieved regardless of broader market challenges for rising managers, underscores robust investor confidence in Founderful’s concentrate on Swiss tech expertise and innovation. The brand new fund has already backed 15 early-stage firms, supporting breakthroughs corresponding to Chiral Nano’s various silicon chips and Eigthinks’ lithium-ion battery developments.
Founderful’s Fund I, which totalled €85.5 million, was absolutely deployed throughout 40 startups and yielded spectacular early outcomes. Firms in Fund I’ve collectively created over 1,100 jobs and attracted greater than €428 million in follow-on funding from distinguished enterprise corporations. Portfolio highlights embody manufacturing analytics agency Ethon AI (raised €15.7 million from Index Ventures), Corintis with pioneering chip cooling know-how, Grape Insurance coverage (raised €9.5 million from Spark), and DePoly, which is growing a facility to recycle 500 tons of plastic waste yearly.
Based in 2019 by Pascal Mathis (GetYourGuide co-founder), Alex Stöckl (former Creathor Ventures Switzerland Lead), and Lukas Weder (EAT.ch co-founder), Founderful has maintained its imaginative and prescient of remodeling Swiss tech startups into world leaders.
Alex Stöckl, Accomplice at Founderful mentioned: “From day one, now we have been relentless in our efforts to create a foothold for the Swiss tech ecosystem on the worldwide stage. Fund II is proof that now we have walked the discuss, and buyers have taken observe. This was no straightforward win, however we fought exhausting. We’re deeply grateful to our LPs, each current and new, for recognizing our drive and sharing our conviction within the Swiss tech ecosystem—a powerhouse that’s solely simply beginning to declare its place within the world tech trade.”
Fund II is supported by establishments, household places of work, and high-profile founders behind unicorns corresponding to Duolingo, Climeworks, GetYourGuide, On, Proton, and Scandit.
Severin Hacker, CTO and co-founder at Duolingo famous: “Constructing Duolingo, I’ve seen my fair proportion of VC corporations, and it’s uncommon to collaborate with an investor who’s as meticulous and relentless towards creating worth to the founders they backed, because the group at Founderful. Their method, mixed with the unfolding potential of the Swiss tech ecosystem, most likely makes them considered one of Europe’s most promising VC corporations nowadays;”
Founderful’s Swiss tech and expertise thesis
Founderful’s funding technique emphasises pre-seed rounds in Switzerland’s tech panorama, tapping into the nation’s strengths via collaborations with high educational establishments and trade leaders. The agency’s concentrate on Swiss tech is supported by three key tendencies:
- World Innovation Management: Switzerland has held the highest place within the World Innovation Index for 13 years, main in know-how, data, and artistic output. The nation additionally boasts the very best patent per capita ratio globally, with ETH Zurich producing extra spin-outs than another college.
- Huge Tech Presence: Main know-how corporations, together with Google (with its largest workplace exterior the US), Disney, Nvidia, Meta, Huawei, and Intel, have invested in native R&D groups in Switzerland.
- Unicorn Density: Switzerland leads Europe in billion-dollar tech startups per capita, with current unicorns like Scandit, Climeworks, and SonarSource underscoring the nation’s prominence in B2B know-how.
As Switzerland’s main pre-seed investor, Founderful plans to develop its assist for early-stage breakthroughs in know-how, reinforcing partnerships with academia and trade. In a European enterprise panorama marked by consolidation, Founderful’s profitable fundraising displays robust investor confidence in its focus and experience.
