Wingman Ventures seeks out the best of Switzerland’s startups, and its diverse portfolio already ranges from mobile commerce to robotics. The Zurich-based venture capital firm, which focuses on startups, announced today that it is rebranding as Founding and has already raised $85 million for its new Fund II, aiming to close $120 million in the coming months.
Backers of the fund include institutional investors, family offices and unicorn founders such as Duolingo, Climeworks, GetYourGuide, Delivery Hero and Scandit. So far it has had two exits: Insightness, a chip vision startup acquired by Sony, and Bring! Labs, a mobile phone startup acquired by Swiss Post. There are two other exits in Founderful’s line, both in the B2B software space, expected to be in the double-digit millions.
Founding partner Alex Stöckl tells TechCrunch that when Founderful raised its first $90 million in 2020, it was Switzerland’s first dedicated independent venture capital firm, investing only at the pre-seed stage.
“With this, overnight, we ended old-fashioned business angel, accelerator and incubator and family office programs that would give founders unfavorable terms, cause premature excessive downsizing and reduce ambition levels to meet their conservative risk return profile,” he says.
Founderful was launched in 2019 by Pascal Mathis, the co-founder of GetYourGuide, a local travel marketplace which reached unicorn status in 2023and Eat.ch co-founder Lukas Weder.
Over the past four years, Founderful has made nearly 50 investments, including eight Swiss investments in 2023. Fund I invested $60 million in 40 startups, involving 109 founders that created 1,093 jobs. In total, Fund I’s portfolio has raised more than $350 million in additional funding over three years.
Fund II’s typical check size will be $1 million for pre-seed stage startups and up to $2 million for seed stage startups.
Founderful seeks startups in the B2B software and industrial spaces and invests in early funding rounds. Its portfolio includes companies from fields such as robotics and industrial automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision technologies and material sciences such as clean technology, climate technology and manufacturing technology.
Many of its portfolio founders come from universities and research institutions such as ETH Zurich, through the Founderful Campus program. It says about two-thirds of its entrepreneurs are graduates, PhDs or researchers from top Swiss academic institutions, and one-third are former founders or employees of successful startups.
Founderful has already started investing funds from Fund II, including alternative silicon chip maker Chiral Nano, ESG reporting platform Nala Earth, robotic security startup Ascento, robotics maker Saeki, job skills platform Anthropos, bimolecular of Isospec Analytics, the lithium-ion battery developer The creator of Eightinks and humanoid robotics Faive Robotics.
Some of Founderful’s other portfolio companies include drone research startup Wingtra, with more than $20 million in annual revenue, plastics recycling company DePoly, and sustainable computing-focused Corintis, a sustainable IT that works with tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Nvidia.
Stöckl says Founderful benefits startups because it repeatedly invests in the country at the same stage and has optimized its operations and support processes “like a Swiss watch, pun intended”. Because it has the same accounting standards, service providers and talent pool, it is able to standardize the added value it offers to founders and their companies, helping them gain market leadership. Founderful also connects the Swiss ecosystem and the international venture capital community, introducing founding teams to the next round of investors.
Going forward, Stöckl says Founderful will continue to double down “in Switzerland, investing in the 10 most ambitious founding teams every year as their lead investor for their first round of funding.”
In an excerpt about why he went to Founderful’s Fund II as a limited partner, Duolingo CTO and co-founder Severin Hacker said, “Building Duolingo, I’ve seen my fair share of VC firms, and it’s rare to work with an investor . who is as meticulous and relentless in creating value for the founders they support as the Founderful team.”
