Born in San Francisco and Paris, one of the most active tech investors in the world, Partech is bringing together capital, operational experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages. The global technology investment company has closed Partech Growth II, at €650M ($750M) in commitments, significantly above Partech Growth I, raised in 2015 at €400M.
The fund closed above its target size has seen staunch support from 45+ institutional investors, endowments & foundations, pension funds, life insurers, asset managers and fund-of-funds, and 40+ prominent family offices, entrepreneurs, and business angels, from 10 countries in Europe, North America, and Asia, despite being a mostly remote fundraise due to the pandemic.
In an exclusive interview with TFN, Partech Growth General Partners talk about the closing of its second Growth fund and the ambitious plan of powering the rise of the next European digital leaders.
Rise of European growth funds
Talking about the evolution of dedicated European growth funds, Omri Benayoun, General Partner, Partech Growth said: “Little over a decade ago, dedicated European growth funds like Partech Growth were few and far between. Despite this, we began to sense a burgeoning growth ecosystem as more companies looked primed to make the crossover from startup to scale-up. The learnings we gained from Partech Growth I have been true confirmation of this suspicion.”
Initial investments that fared well
The company made its initial investments in leading companies such as Amboss, M-Files and NA-KD, while growing its ownership in time to become the bigger investor.
“We helped the likes of MADE.com navigate the journey to IPO; and helped Brandwatch, through a $450M acquisition, find a larger platform in Cision to help achieve its mission. We were the first-ever financial investor in Ecovadis and Sendinblue, supported their worldwide growth and eventual further acceleration helping them raise hundreds of millions of euros.”
12 unicorns and still counting
The dedicated funds are supporting entrepreneurs from seed to growth on four continents: Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. The fresh capital has already been put to work in five companies in the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.
They include Rohlik – the Prague-based online grocer with full end-to-end operations including procurement, fulfilment, and last-mile delivery; Paris-based Skello – the online scheduling and personnel management SaaS tool; Paris-based Rouje – the ultimate French digital native brand of women’s fashion; the Amsterdam-headquartered Studocu – the knowledge sharing platform used by more than 15 million students in higher education globally; and Stockholm-based Billogram – the integrated customer experience, bill and payment platform for large B2C enterprise.
What lies ahead
The plan is to continue backing digitally native scale-ups poised to become the next generation of Europe’s Fortune 500, spanning enterprise and SMB software, consumer brands, healthcare, financial services, education, and other frontier technologies. With PG II the team plans to double down on its existing investment strategy and will partner with 12–15 exceptional companies, writing check sizes between €20-70m.
Excited to work with even more ambitious founders across Europe, Bruno Crémel, General Partner, Partech Growth said: “Partech Growth II is investing in tech and digital B2B and B2C companies that have a proven model and healthy-unit economics. They are in a high-growth stage and plan to expand internationally quickly. We take part in their journey and provide consistent support and encouragement, complete transparency, and stick together through the highs and the lows.”
