French VC company Daphni has announced the first closure of its new fund, Daphni Blue. The company raised 200 million euros (approximately $215 million at its current exchange rate). It plans to raise 250 million euros ($270 million) by the end of the year.
Daphni's most notable past investments include Back Market, Swill, Hub Cycle and Pascal. Overall, the company has invested in 70 European startups since 2015.
Daphni has the latest fund and plans to invest in 40 more startups. Daphni Blue's limited partners include Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Bpifrance, European Investment Fund, Pro BTP, and Swen Capital Partners.
“We need to ask ourselves how to differentiate ourselves and how we can support sustainable technology and services when investing in new projects.”
“At the end of the day there's a cycle and at certain moments, you know whether the market is consolidated, dominated by American players, or ultimately there wasn't enough breakthrough from the start.”
While most VC companies mention artificial intelligence in all other sentences, Daphni wants to focus on science (as a whole) and focus on life science, biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, the main factors behind the next innovation.
“When we talk about quantum computing, quantum computing is fundamental physics combined with hardware and software,” says Leibovici. He also said that large-scale language models are mathematical breakthroughs.
As a result, Daphni is recruiting a variety of profiles to join the team. For example, doctoral graduates and doctoral students are on the investment team.
“There's another element that's a new trend. A new generation of researchers are seeing all their friends around them starting a company, so they're much more open to commercializing their basic and applied research,” Leibovici said.
While French universities have put aside some of their budgets to attract American researchers, Daphni says they have not chosen to focus on basic science for this reason.
“It's a coincidence. We launched this long before this trend began,” Raibovich said. Of course, Daphni is open to investing in American researchers starting startups in Europe.
Next, Daphni must deploy this newly promoted capital and prove that an efficient investment strategy has been found. “Salary raises are not an end in itself; it's the end of its own right, and therefore the exit,” said Raibovich.