French company VC Daphne announces the first closure of his new fund, Daphni Blue. The company increased EUR 200 million (about $ 215 million in current exchange rates). It expects to increase 250 million euros ($ 270 million) by the end of the year.
Some of Daphni’s most remarkable investments include back market, Swile, Hubcycle and Pasqal. In total, the company has invested in 70 European companies since 2015.
With his latest fund, Daphni plans to invest in another 40 newly established companies. The limited partners in Daphni Blue include Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, BPIFrance, the European Investment Fund, Pro BTP and Swen Capital Partners.
“We need to ask ourselves how we can differentiate ourselves and support technologies or services that are sustainable when investing in new projects,” Founder Pierre-European.
“Because at the end of the day there are circles and we can see that at a given time, either the market is established or dominated by American players, or eventually there was not enough discovery to start.”
While most VC companies report artificial intelligence in any other proposal, Daphni wants to emphasize science (more generally) as the main factor for the next wave of innovation: the sciences of life, biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics.
“When you talk about quantum information technology, well, quantum information technology is fundamental natural in combination with hardware and software,” Leibovici said. He also said that large linguistic models are math discoveries first of all.
As a result, Daphni hires different profiles to participate in the group. For example, a doctorate graduate and a doctorate student are in the investment team.
“There is another element that is a new trend. The new generation of researchers is much more open to commercialize their fundamental and applied research because they see all their friends around them start companies,” Leibovici said.
While French universities are in the edge Part of their budget to attract US researchers, Daphni says he did not choose to redefine fundamental science because of it.
“It’s a coincidence, we started this long before that trend,” Leibovici said. Of course, Daphni is open to investing in US researchers starting a start in Europe.
Daphni then should develop this recently elevated capital and prove that it has found an effective investment strategy. “Lifting is not an end in itself. What is an end in itself is the distribution of returns and therefore comes out,” Leibovici said.
