LBAN recently partnered with Verve Ventures, the Swiss-based pan-European venture capital firm. Chris Gay-Crosier, head of international investments at Verve Ventures shares their side of the story.
With annual investments of €60-70 million Verve is among the top 10% most active startup investors in Europe. Which factors convinced you to partner with LBAN?
Well first off, I’d like to mention that we have been growing our annual investments by a factor of 1.5-1.8. So this year we hope to reach around €80 million and keep on growing that number year after year.
As a European company, Verve Ventures grants private investors access to interesting startup opportunities, across stages, industries, and also geographies. This is a unique model because we have built a fully digital platform which allows us to act as a venture capital fund. The added value of this model lies in the fact that private investors can get access to Series A, Series B, Series C rounds – anything beyond Seed Round actually.
In order to capitalise on our model and become a pan-European dealflow platform, we want to partner with the best local institutions. As an established and respected player in Luxembourg, partnering with LBAN was an obvious decision. Having invested in Salonkee, we also had first-hand experience with the ecosystem. By partnering with LBAN we not only add a community of investors which will bring value to European startups but also give wider access to LBAN’s members, so it’s really a mutually beneficial partnership.
What should Luxembourgish startups interested in receiving funding know about Verve Ventures?
Our sweet spot is really Series A opportunities. Typically we participate in rounds that are between €5-20 million. Depending on the industry, we have different criteria they should pay attention to. If it’s a digital company, we want to see commercial traction from first customers.. For other startups, we want tangible proof such as a functioning prototype.
More generally, we want to help companies expand across Europe, help them be smarter in their talent acquisition and go-to-market strategy and the right exit strategy when the time is right. Our portfolio success team is working every day to support our companies in introducing them to potential clients and helping them wherever necessary.
“In the long-term, I hope that from the 25 European startups we invest in annually one of them will be in Luxembourg.”
Chris Gay-Crosier, head of international investments at Verve Ventures
Which 5 startups in your portfolio should our readers know about?
In the SaaS field, we have Beekeeper, for instance, a company we have financed several times in the past years. Since 30% of our portfolio consists of life science companies, we have a lot of interesting prospects there, such as Belgium-base OncoDNA, a powerful decision support system for doctors treating cancer.
In greentech, we have Ecorobotix which is very impact-focused and reduces the number of chemicals used in the process of weed removal. Then there is Byrd, an e-commerce fulfilment startup currently expanding its services across Europe. In the past 10 months, it has raised €70 million. Finally, I’d like to mention Sympatient from Germany. As a result of the pandemic, anxiety is now the No.1 mental disorder, ahead even of depression. And Sympatient has garnered international recognition for its pioneering work in treating anxiety digitally.
Which aspects of the Luxembourg ecosystem caught your attention at Verve Ventures?
From what I’ve seen so far, digital tech seems quite dominant. In particular, enterprise SaaS, fintech/crypto (also linked to the active financial sector) and a lot of datatech. That is of course of interest to us, especially since Luxembourg-based companies are indeed very internationally-minded and digital tech is also very suitable for fast internationalization. Secondly, we also saw a lot of emerging deeptech with for example a relatively high concentration of space tech compared to other countries.
The international cross-border mindset which is similar to the Swiss one certainly helped in our decision. Furthermore, Luxembourg is a dynamic, fast-growing ecosystem with a lot of know-how in different verticals.
How will this new partnership affect LBAN members?
The message we have for them is that they will get easy access to Verve Ventures. This means access to webinars and our deal flow, of course. We are helping them get familiar with these new services by offering them an onboarding which answers any questions they might have. Finally, they will also be able to attend the pitches of Verve Ventures’ companies and meet various different entrepreneurs.
What are your near-term and long-term goals in Luxembourg?
The next step for us is to get closer to the LBAN community and provide them with new investment opportunities. At some point, we will also favour more investments from our side into the local ecosystem. But concretely, we want to keep building on our relationship with LBAN and create a strong bond of trust.
In the long-term, I hope that from the 25 European startups we invest in annually one of them will be in Luxembourg. From a per capita perspective that would already be a pretty strong outcome. But this will obviously also depend on hope the Luxembourg ecosystem keeps evolving.
