It's not every day that a new VC firm emerges from stealth. Now, Varsity is announcing its first fund. Founded by a former Société Générale executive and two of his VC investors who worked at Serena Capital, Varsity has already raised €70 million ( At today's exchange rates he has raised $75 million.
This is just the first deadline, as Varsity hopes to raise as much as 150 million euros ($161 million) for Varsity I. Overall, the company plans to invest in around 30 European startups. Varsity's limited partners include his Bpifrance, a French public bank, MACSF, Sogecap and Elevation Capital Partners (creating feeder funds).
This means that Varsity plans to invest between €1 million and €5 million depending on the investment opportunity, with the option to invest in additional investments. Varsity has already invested his 15 million euros in five companies. The team doesn't have a specific sector in mind, but says it plans to invest in finance, healthcare, enterprise software and climate startups.
The three founding members are Didier Vallée, former deputy CEO of Société Générale, and Kamel Zeroal and Florent Thomas, who worked for a time at Serena Capital.
Florent Thomas (pictured on the right) also created TalentLetter in 2018. This is an e-mail newsletter for technology startups looking for potential employers. Every week, TalentLetter sends out two profiles of individuals selected for their potential to make a significant impact on fast-growing startups. Together with Marie Brayer, they also created Karma Driven, an invite-only job board.
As for Camel Zeroual (pictured left), he created the Startup Mafia podcast where he interviewed several executives working at a handful of successful technology startups. During the first season, he interviewed his Swile executives. He shifted his focus to his Alan and his Checkout.com in seasons 2 and 3.
Both men already know quite a few people in the startup ecosystem. It will therefore be interesting to see how the Varsity team plans to leverage these platforms to identify interesting investment opportunities and ensure that they pan out at a later stage.