Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm based in Paris, is announcing the final closing of its first fund. Eighteen months after the first closing, the Emblem team managed to secure €80 million in total (around $85 million at current exchange rates).
This is no small feat in the current funding environment. According to Atomico’s latest State of European Tech report, in 2024, venture funding fell for the third year in a row. One of the main reasons for this is that acquisitions and IPOs aren’t really happening right now.
As a result, VC as an investment category is less attractive than it used to be. Several VC firms are struggling to raise follow-on funds despite the current artificial intelligence boom, which could potentially represent a huge investment opportunity.
But that didn’t stop Emblem from reaching its hard cap — the maximum amount that it had originally set to raise. Founded by Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan and Guillaume Durao, the duo had already made some interesting investments as business angels before creating Emblem. They invested in crypto trading card game Sorare, pet insurance startup Dalma, and cultivated meat company Gourmey, to name a few.
They wanted to go one step further with a proper VC firm, which to Emblem, a seed investment firm that wants to make 25 to 30 investments with its initial fund. Ideally, they would rather lead or co-lead seed rounds with tickets ranging from €500,000 to €3 million. But the firm is willing to follow another lead investor if there’s a good opportunity, too.
Emblem has already invested in 16 startups since its first closing in March 2023. TechCrunch has covered a few of them. Examples include:
Pivot, a procurement tool and Coupa competitor.
The Mobile-First Company, a B2B mobile app studio drawing inspiration from Voodoo …