Partech closes $100m seed fund to invest in a post-Covid future

Partech closes $100m seed fund to invest in a post-Covid future

While 3 billion people are confined at home, digitalization is bound to dramatically accelerate across sectors and “remote” is emerging as a new standard.

This redefines how people live, work and consume, while businesses have to massively switch online and reinvent themselves. Startups closing seed rounds at the moment are ideally positioned to seize the opportunities lying ahead in the new “normal” world, while incumbents are dealing with old infrastructure and massive cost-cutting plans.

In line with this, Partech has announced the final closing of its latest Seed Fund, Partech Entrepreneur III, at $100M, investing in post-COVID trends in health, work, commerce, finance, mobility and computing.

With the Partech Entrepreneur III Fund, Partech says that they are now one of the largest seed investors around the globe, with its seed funds exceeding $300M in total and topping 160 investments in 22 countries across Europe, US and Asia.

Partech seed funds are run by a dedicated team of 10 investors made of former founders and startup employees, located in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin.

Partech invests across all stages of seed, from pre-seed rounds of a few hundred thousand dollars to pre-Series A rounds of several million dollars, from chips and deep tech to marketplaces. Investments are focused on 6 verticals revealed and accelerated by the 2020 crisis:

• Future of Health:​ ​Personalized, Online, AI-assisted
• Future of Work:​ ​Remote, Collaborative, Continuous education
• Future of Commerce: ​Software-enabled, Social, Instant
• Future of Finance: ​API-based, Data-driven, Decentralized
• Future of Mobility: ​Autonomous, Multimodal, On-demand
• Future of Computing: ​Edge, AI, Wireless

Partech seed funds are large by design, so as to be able to invest pro-rata (or more) in follow-on Series A and B rounds led by other Funds. After 18 months from the initial Partech investment, 2/3 of companies have either raised Series A, or been acquired at a higher valuation. They have raised more than $1.5B in follow-on money as of today.

“We didn’t want a VC in our seed round, and then we spoke to Partech. I’m super glad they decided to support us from Day 0, being always there for us to challenge us and help us go to the next stage.” – Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, Co-Founder and CEO of Alan.

The Partech seed team syncs up monthly with other top international venture funds for upcoming Series A and B rounds of its Seed Portfolio and has invested alongside / helped build syndicates with more than 100 other leading Funds, including multiple times with Sequoia, Index, Accel, Bessemer, Greycroft, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures and NEA.

Founders benefit not only from a highly dedicated and hands-on support by each investor in the Partech seed team (highly praised with an NPS of 80 as of Q1 2020) but also from the larger Partech community, sharing advice and best practices.

This community is managed day-to-day by a team of 6 people full time, is strong of 400 Founders and has access to key decision-makers at a hundred Fortune 500 companies (of which a third are Partech LPs).

“We simply wouldn’t be where we are today without the outstanding daily support from Partech. They have really been a deeply transformative partner for our business and it has been a huge privilege to have them on board from day 1. We are extremely thankful for this amazing journey together!” – Vincent Dupied, Co-Founder and CEO of Dejbox

The Partech platform is very active with dedicated events every 6 weeks, as well as its popular cross-border Talent Marketplace (1,000 job offers and 4,000 candidates currently on the platform).

The Founder community is extremely diverse, with first-time and repeat entrepreneurs, from more than 22 countries and 17% of the startups were started by female co-Founders (29% for the seed investments in the last 2 years).

These Founders are actively giving back to the community, helping peers, making introductions and even becoming investors themselves.

“The Partech team was there from the beginning to support us from idea to exit. They are great partners for globally minded entrepreneurs. They move quickly to make decisions, helped us navigate critical and strategic decision points in the business. They bring a unique international investing perspective and support network to bear for rapidly scaling companies.” – Sujay Tyle, Co-Founder and CEO of Frontier Car Group

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Partech Entrepreneur III has closed 8 new investments and committed to 2 more, contributing to a diversified portfolio across the 6 target verticals accelerated by the 2020 crisis.

Previously, Partech seed funds (Partech Entrepreneur I and II) have notably been the first to invest in high profile companies that can be found here

Partech recently held a webinar with Nairobi Garage on the impact of COVID -19 on investing in startups. You can get a recap of the webinar here