At Breega, we’ve had a very busy year so far. Not only have we been meeting, vetting and investing in high tech startups from all over Europe, but we’ve been met, vetted and invested in ourselves, by our own investors.

We’re delighted to announce that the hard work is paying off. We’ve just completed the first closing of our third fund at €90 million, meaning that we’ve exceeded our initial goal by more than €30 million!

We’d like to use this as an opportunity to thank all of our investors for their trust and support. A large majority of our individual LPs and all of our institutional investors have decided to embark on this third adventure with us. Several other new institutional investors will also be joining the Breega family, of which the European Investment Fund (EIF) and Isomer Capital

“The EIF is delighted to be starting a new relationship with Breega. With a strong operational and investment background, the Breega team provides investment and active hands-on support to entrepreneurs, as well as complementing other established players on the French market”. Pier Luigi Gilibert, CEO- European Investment Fund (EIF)

“Isomer Capital is excited to partner with the Breega team as they continue to carry out their mission to offer early-stage capital and hands-on support to exceptional founders in France and beyond. Breega brings to the market a welcome mix of entrepreneurial DNA, founder-friendliness and thoughtful operational support, now available to the next wave of outstanding European entrepreneurs”. Chris Wade, Partner- Isomer Capital

We wish you all a very warm welcome!

As Breega moves towards the end of its sixth investment year, we’ve been taking a look back at how far we’ve come. Our successes, our failures, what we have achieved during the last few years and where we’re hoping to go next.
As a quick reminder, the Breega story began a little over six years ago when three entrepreneurs, François Paulus, Maximilien Bacot and Ben Marrel — having founded their companies in the telecoms, fintech and online sportswear sectors — decided to leverage their learnings and invest in high growth tech startups themselves.

Their aim was to fill what they saw as a gap in the venture capital landscape: the existing funding gap between Seed and Series A at that time, as well as the knowledge gap they felt many VCs had about what it took to build a company themselves.

Having been through the entrepreneurial journey more than once, our founders had real first-hand experience, not only of the difficulties of trying to raise capital at the seed stage, but also of the challenges of trying to grow a new company and finding and financing the right professional expertise and guidance to help them do so. Particularly during the key launch and acceleration phases of their businesses.

So they decided to set up their own venture capital fund and call it Breega which stands for BRidging the Equity and Experience GAp.

The BreeGinning.

Armed with their business acumen, vision and above all a desire to help early-stage founders, they set about contacting fellow entrepreneurs who had succeeded in launching and growing successful businesses to ask them if they would be interested in helping other founders as a way of giving back.

Their request struck a chord and they were able to raise a first fund of €45M.

Given this was their first fund, this was no mean feat. But they were motivated and enthusiastic, and their vision and goal just made sense: helping young businesses to succeed helps to fuel the economy and benefits society as a whole. The founders decided to invest in what they believe are the businesses of the future: high tech European startups.

Breega started investing in companies from 2014, focusing on European founders with passion and potential looking to solve proven pain points in a variety of sectors, from Foodtech to Fintech, Adtech to Deeptech, SaaS, Marketplaces and even hardware.

BreeGrows…

Over the past six years, Breega has onboarded more than forty amazing early-stage tech companies with great potential.

In 2017, we closed our second fund, this time of €100M, focused on startups in the fintech and insurtech arena. Investing in and accompanying trailblazing companies such as Curve, Lemonway, Ibanfirst and Cuvva as they grow is not only a pleasure but a privilege.

Our first big exit came at the beginning of 2018 with the sale of FoodChéri to Sodexo. Since then, we’ve carried out two more.
The last to date being the very recent sale of Lylo Media group who, having been bought by Transperfect will be continuing their adventure from the other side of the pond.

As Breega’s portfolio has grown, so has its teams. In the investment team, Maximilien, Ben and François have chosen to surround themselves with talented and motivated entrepreneurs who, like them, have grown their own businesses and so fully understand the highs and lows of the startup journey.

Whilst smart young founders are mostly equipped with great ideas and drive, they often lack senior-level expertise in specific fields that are vital for accelerating their companies, such as business development, talent acquisition, marketing, legal and finance etc. This is especially true at the beginning of their startup journeys when they most need help but can least afford it…

Breega decided to deal with this pain point and help boost their startup teams by creating an in-house operations team with experts in the worlds of business development, talent and people, legal and finance and PR/comms. And making them available to their startups for free, whenever and if ever needed.

Meet all the team here!

BreeGo!

Looking forwards, the startup community often places too much emphasis on a company raising a big round. Yes, that is exciting and a meaningful milestone, but it is all the hard work that comes later that generates the real value. Like our companies, we believe the same is true for us. We are thrilled to be celebrating this first close of our third fund, but the hard work of meeting, vetting, and investing in promising high growth startups is just beginning.

And let’s face it, helping the innovators of the future succeed, isn’t all *hard* work.
Interested in finding out how we get on?
Watch this space!