Iris, a Paris, France and Berlin, and Munich, Germany-based venture and growth firm, announced the first closing of its new €150m venture fund dedicated to Seed and Series A investments in France, Germany and across Europe.
The second closing is expected late 2023.
IRIS Venture IV is backed by IRIS’ historical investors including Orange, Publicis and Bpifrance alongside newcomers among which several European family offices, tech entrepreneurs and portfolio founders including Fred Potter, founder of Netatmo, Yannis Yahiaoui, cofounder of Adot, Amirhossein Malekzadeh, cofounder of Logmatic, Grégoire Delpit, cofounder of ProcessOut, Patrick Asdaghi, founder of FoodCheri or Adrien Nussenbaum, cofounder of Mirakl.
The venture team invests tickets in Seed and Series A, from €1m to €8m, in tech companies across Europe with a focus on France and Germany where the investment team is based.
The new fund is already active with lead investments in Spinergie in France, Helu in Austria and 2 more to be announced early next year.
IRIS has also announced the appointment of Denis Duverne, former Chairman of the Board of AXA and Chairman of IRIS Supervisory board, a position previously held by Maurice Levy, Chairman of the Supervisory board of Publicis, as well as as Senior Advisor. His work with IRIS will involve supporting IRIS in its fundraising strategy, especially for its upcoming Growth fund. As Senior Advisor, Duverne will work closely with the management team to further increase the size and ambitions of the upcoming IRIS funds dedicated to European tech scaleups. He graduated from HEC Paris and ENA and began his career at the French Ministry of Finance before joining the Consulate General of France in New York, the French Treasury and later became a member of the executive board of Banque Colbert, in charge of operations.
Led by Erik de la Rivière, Julien-David Nitlech and Curt Gunsenheimer, Managing Partners, IRIS has historically invested in over 350 companies globally with a unique Franco-German anchorage that started in the early 1990’s. IRIS investments include SaaS leaders such as Shift Technology (insurtech), Talend (software), Kyriba (fintech), Lumapps (HR), Jedox (software), industry 4.0 and logistics experts such Exotec (logistics), Braincube (manufacturing software), Forto (freight management), Spinergie (offshore), platforms such as Virtuo (mobility), Yubo (social) and data specialists like Talon.one (marketing), Red Points (brand protection) or Scality (cloud).
The team realised more than 300 exits including the sale of Careem to Uber, the NASDAQ IPO of Talend, the LBO of Kyriba with Bridgepoint, the acquisition of Netatmo by Legrand or more recently the acquisition of Monk by ACV and many more.
The team currently backs 6 active unicorns in Europe and the USA.
FinSMEs
07/12/2022