{"id":46999,"date":"2023-10-19T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/19\/french-vc-firm-founders-future-just-acquired-an-equity-crowdfunding-platform-sowefund-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2023-10-19T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T04:00:00","slug":"french-vc-firm-founders-future-just-acquired-an-equity-crowdfunding-platform-sowefund-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/19\/french-vc-firm-founders-future-just-acquired-an-equity-crowdfunding-platform-sowefund-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"French VC firm Founders Future just acquired an equity crowdfunding platform, Sowefund | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Here\u2019s an interesting move. Founders Future<\/a>, a well-known VC firm in the French tech ecosystem, acquired an equity crowdfunding marketplace called Sowefund<\/a>. While terms of the deal remain undisclosed, Sowefund has been profitable since 2022 with around 20 employees.<\/p>\n

Following this move, Founders Future now has two separate yet complementary businesses. With its VC funds, which I\u2019ve recently covered<\/a>, Founders Future raises money from limited partners, which include professional investors and family offices, and then invests in promising startups. In other words, it\u2019s VC as usual.<\/p>\n

With its crowdfunding platform, it matches retail investors with startups that want to raise money from their community of users or from personal finance experts who want to diversify their savings with risky but potentially rewarding investments. Going forward, Founders Future and Sowefund will still operate completely separately \u2014 there won\u2019t be any synergy between these two activities.<\/p>\n

So why would a VC firm go downstream and acquire a crowdfunding platform?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe noticed two major trends. The first trend, which you have certainly noticed, is that you have a new generation of investors who want to get more hands on \u2014 with both public and private companies. They want transparency and they want to invest in the real economy,\u201d Founders Future founder and CEO Marc Menas\u00e9 told me.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second observation we\u2019ve made is that, our job with the fund is very professional and very disciplined in its day-to-day approach. And we can bring these methods to a company involved in crowdfunding financing. And it\u2019s true that this hasn\u2019t been done much,\u201d Menas\u00e9 added.<\/p>\n

And Founders Future has already seen how crowdfunding companies work with some of the firm\u2019s portfolio companies \u2014 for instance, Taster and 900.care raised some money on Crowdcube, the British investment platform that expanded to France in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Raising the bar for equity crowdfunding<\/h2>\n

Sowefund\u2019s two co-founders Benjamin Wattinne and Georges Viglietti will remain at the helm of the crowdfunding platform going forward. But Founders Future has a multi-million investment plan to grow Sowefund\u2019s team in the coming year or two.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we want to do is bring our know-how to ensure that Sowefund becomes more professional and truly the go-to platform for co-investment with professionals. That\u2019s really what we want to achieve,\u201d Menas\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n

Since 2014, Sowefund has handled 103 crowdfunding campaigns. Overall, companies have raised \u20ac81 million from more than 110,000 retail investors (that\u2019s $86 million at today\u2019s exchange rate) \u2014 no word on the performance of these investments. Recent campaigns include Ekwateur, Agriloops, Lunii, Axioma, Extracadabra and Futura Ga\u00efa.<\/p>\n

More recently, Sowefund received an agreement to be certified as a European crowdfunding service provider. It means it can operate in other European countries in the future.<\/p>\n

But the Sowefund team (and Founders Future) want to go one step further depending on regulatory changes. Eventually, Sowefund would like to offer the opportunity to invest in funds, such as VC funds, impact funds, etc. But that\u2019s not yet possible.<\/p>\n

Founders Future\u2019s move is also interesting because of the timing. VC investments have slowed down over the past couple of years around the world. As many VC firms are still passing on deals that would have made sense a few years ago, it\u2019s time for startup CEOs to find creative ways to extend their runways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe potential investment pool among individuals is enormous. So you have people who want to invest in companies they know and use \u2014 or they have a positive sentiment for these companies. And there are a huge number of them,\u201d Menas\u00e9 said. \u201cSo I think what\u2019s great about equity crowdfunding is that it\u2019s an alternative or a complement in a context where financing is difficult for companies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s an interesting move. Founders Future, a well-known VC firm in the French tech ecosystem, acquired an equity crowdfunding marketplace called Sowefund. While terms of the deal remain undisclosed, Sowefund has been profitable since 2022 with around 20 employees. Following this move, Founders Future now has two separate yet complementary businesses. With its VC funds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}