Wingman Ventures seeks the best in Swiss startups, and its diverse portfolio already spans from mobile commerce to robotics. The Zurich-based venture capital firm, which focuses on pre-seed startups, announced today that it will rebrand to Founderful and has already raised $85 million for its new Fund II, with more to come. The goal is to raise $120 million within the next few months.
The fund's backers include institutional investors, family offices, and the founders of unicorn companies such as Duolingo, Climeworks, GetYourGuide, Deliver Hero, and Scandit. So far, there have been two exits: Insights, a vision chip startup acquired by Sony, and Bring!. Labs is a mobile commerce startup acquired by Swiss Post. Founderful has two other exits in the pipeline, both in his B2B software space, which are expected to reach his double-digit millions.
Founding partner Alex Stöckl told TechCrunch that when Founderful closed its first $90 million in funding in 2020, it was Switzerland's first independent pure-play venture capital firm to reach the pre-seed stage. It is said that he had invested only in
“This puts us at a disadvantage to founders, causes premature over-dilution, and reduces ambition levels to meet conservative risk returns. from day one to the next,” he says.
Founderful was founded in 2019 by Pascal Mathis, co-founder of GetYourGuide, a local travel marketplace that achieved unicorn status in 2023, and Lukas Weder, co-founder of Eat.ch.
Over the past four years, Founderful has made approximately 50 investments, including eight investments in Switzerland in 2023. Her Fund I invested $60 million in 40 startups, including her 109 founders, that created 1,093 jobs. Fund I's portfolio has raised a total of more than $350 million in additional capital over three years.
Typical check amounts for Fund II are $1 million for pre-seed stage startups and up to $2 million for seed stage startups.
Founderful seeks out B2B software and industrial startups and invests in their first round of funding. Its portfolio includes companies in areas such as robotics and industrial automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision technology, and materials science, including clean technology, climate technology, and construction technology.
Many of its portfolio founders come from universities and research institutes such as ETH Zurich through the Founderful Campus program. The company says around two-thirds of the entrepreneurs are graduates, PhDs or researchers from top Swiss academic institutions, and one-third are former founders or employees of successful start-ups.
Founderful has already started capital investments from Fund II, including alternative silicon chip maker Chiral Nano, ESG reporting platform Nala Earth, security robot startup Ascento, manufacturing robot Saeki, and workplace skills platform They include Anthropos, biomolecular analysis company Isospec Analytics, and lithium-ion battery developer. Eightinks and his Faive Robotics, a humanoid robot developer.
Founderful's other portfolio companies include Wingtra, a surveying drone startup with over $20 million in annual revenue; plastics recycling company DePoly; and Corintis, which partners with tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Nvidia to focus on sustainable computing. etc. are included.
Stöckle said Founderful benefits startups because it invests in the country multiple times at the same stage and optimizes support capabilities and processes “like Swiss clockwork.” . With the same accounting standards, service providers, and talent pool, we standardize the added value for founders and their companies, helping them gain a market lead. Founderful will also connect the Swiss ecosystem with the international venture capital community and introduce the founder team to the next round of investors.
In the future, Founderful will “further strengthen its investments in Switzerland by investing in 10 of the most ambitious founder teams each year as lead investor in their first funding round,” Stöckle said. .
Severin Hacker, CTO and co-founder of Duolingo, said of his reasons for joining Founderful's Fund II as a limited partner: He, like the team at Founderful, is meticulous and relentless about creating value for the founders they back. ”