The European VC Emblem firm raises $ 85 million for its initial fund

EmblemA relatively new European VC firm based in Paris, announces the final closure of its first fund. Eighteen months after the first closure, the emblems team managed to ensure € 80 million in total (about $ 85 million to current exchange rates).

This is not a small feat in the current financing environment. According to the latest report of the state of European Atomic technology, in 2024, risk financing fell for the third consecutive year. One of the main reasons for this is that acquisitions and OPIs are not happening at this time.

As a result, VC as an investment category is less attractive than it used to be. Several VC companies are struggling to raise follow -up funds despite the current rise of artificial intelligence, which could represent a great investment opportunity.

But that did not prevent the emblem from reaching its hard limit, the maximum amount that had originally increased. Founded by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan and Guillaume Durao, the duo had already made some interesting investments such as business angels before creating emblems. Invested in the cryptography trade card game SowPet insurance start Dalmaand cultivated meat company GourmeyTo name a few.

They wanted to go one step further with an adequate risk capital company, which for emblems, a seed investment firm that wants to make 25 to 30 investments with its initial fund. Ideally, they prefer to lead or co-lead seed rounds with tickets ranging from € 500,000 to € 3 million. But the company is willing to follow another main investor if there is also a good opportunity.

Emblem has already invested in 16 new companies since its first closure in March 2023. Techcrunch has covered some of them. Examples include:

• Pivot, an acquisition tool and competitor of Cupa.
• The first mobile companya study of mobile B2B applications that is inspired by Voodoo and another study of consumption applications.
• Altrove, a new material company that uses AI and laboratory automation to accelerate research.
• Volta, an online trade platform like Shopify, but focused exclusively on B2B transactions.

It is a diverse wallet when it comes to the focus area, but also the geographical approach. “We have made 16 investments. To give him an idea, there are eight of them in France, six in the Nordics – Denmark, Sweden – and then we did one in the United States and one in Italy, ”said Raphélis Soissan to TechCrunch.

Emblem’s central approach remains in France and the Nordic technological ecosystem. It has more than 200 limited partners who invested in the first fund, including family offices and technological entrepreneurs, such as the founders of Unity, Pleo, Qonto, 3shape, Spendesk, Voodoo, Pennylane, Jobandtalent, Ledger and Zendesk. They compensate for more than half of the total amount.

The rest has raised several funds, as well as the EIFO commitments (the Danish Sovereign Fund) and Bpifrance (the French Sovereign Fund). Emblem is already thinking about its next background, which should be approximately the same size as this.

“Now we have a little time when we don’t need to raise. So let’s savor it. But you never want to be out of the market, ”said De Rashélis Soissan. “Then, since it has been deploying for four years, and we are in the middle, that means that in a year, we will have to start again.”