French VC firm Founders Future reaches $80 million first close for its new funds

Founders Future is a pretty recent entrant in the French VC scene, but it has already built an interesting portfolio of tech startups over the past few years. The firm is currently in the process of raising two new funds — Founders Future II and Founders Future Expansion.

Launched in 2018 by Marc Menasé, a well-known serial entrepreneur and business angel in the French tech scene, Founders Future has invested in around 100 different companies, such as Lydia, Yuka, 900.care, Memo Bank, Waterdrop, Sharpist, Rentle, Taster, Stockly, omi studio and Audi-On.

The VC firm also used this opportunity to share some metrics about its portfolio. Overall, Founders Future-backed startup generate $268 million in revenue (€250 million). They have raised a total of $644 million (€600 million). The total valuation of portfolio companies is $5.4 billion (€5 billion). And those companies currently have 3,000 employees in total.

Overall, Founders Future currently has $216 million of assets under management (€200 million). Founders Future doesn’t have any public funding. Instead, it relies on successful entrepreneurs and family offices acting as limited partners.

And now, the firm plans to raise up to $162 million (€150 million) across two different funds. It has already reached a first close of $80 million (€75 million). Once again, Founders Future wants to back new startup at the seed stage — 60% of the amount raised will be dedicated to Founders Future II.

The rest (40%) will be put into Founders Future Expansion, a new fund that will be dedicated to post-Series A rounds for existing portfolio companies.

Founders Future doesn’t invest in a specific vertical. It wants to find disruptive companies in well-established industries, such as retail, bank, insurance, food, real estate and healthcare. It also wants to back innovative AI, climate or circular economy startups.

With Founders Future II, the firm plans to invest in 45 to 60 different startups. That represents around 12 to 15 investments per year. There will naturally be less investments with Founders Future Expansion — around 15 to 20 investments for the entire fund.

At the seed level, the firm plans to hand out €250,000 to €3 million while the later stage fund will be focused on bigger checks — from €1 million to €7.5 million.