Elaia Partners announced this morning a closing of a new 45M€ fund, Elaia Alpha. The fund is dedicated to seed stage startups, and while a part of it will be dedicated to investing 500K€-1M€ tickets to startups raising a seed stage around, there will also be a portion of the fund dedicated to investing smaller tickets – 100K€ to 300K€ – in order to help startups get their feet off the ground. Elaia Partners noted that it is general the lead or co-lead investor in a round with its traditional fund investing up to 4M€, and hopes to continue that trend of leading growth in the French digital economy.
This seed fund, at the moment of its closing, is the most important fund in France’s digital economy. It will allow us to put to apply our investment strategy which we proved with our previous fund, namely to identify startups as early as possible and accompany them throughout their journey in order to build global industry leaders.”
Philippe Gire*, Partner at Elaia Partners.
The Elais Alpha fund was participated in by Le Fonds National d’Amorcage (the national seed fund), with management being trusted to CDC Entreprises, le Fond Européen d’Investissement, Pactinvest (Groupe SMABTP), as well as well-known web & tech entrepreneurs.
Elaia has played a very strong roll in the growth of the French digital economy. Among other investments, they were the first investors in Criteo, now valued at $800M after raising a Series D this summer. They’ve also invested in Scoop.it, as well as Ykone, which hosts the fashion 2.0 event Flow in Paris each year.
Elaia Partners partner Marie Ekeland is also co-president of France Digitale, an association comprised of investors & entrepreneurs who lobby the French government in favor of the startup scene. They recently submitted 4 propositions to the government, all of which were accepted, including preservation and fortification of the JEI tax status as well as the CIR R&D tax credit.