French VC firm Newwave, cofounded by Pia d’Iribarne and Jean de La Rochebrochard in 2020, is being taken over by NJJ Holding, French billionaire Xavier Niel’s personal holding company, D’Iribarne and NJJ Holding announced today in a statement. D’Iribarne is leaving the firm and has decided to pursue other investment opportunities. But insiders describe a drama playing out behind the scenes.
NJJ is Newwave’s largest LP, Sifted understands. De La Rochebrochard will return to manage the fund, according to two sources, just months after being removed from the investment firm in April.
Sifted has reached out to De La Rochebrochard who said he could not comment on Newwave. Niel declined to comment.
“I am proud to have cofounded and led Newwave,” D’Iribarne said. “We have helped more than 20 companies grow and helped transform technology investing in Europe and beyond. I am grateful to have worked alongside so many incredible entrepreneurs and will continue to root for all of them.”
The firm has stakes in buzzy AI startups Mistral and Poolside as well as carbon accounting platform Sweep.
Earlier this year, Newwave cofounder De La Rochebrochard was ousted from the fund for “a number of reasons” that made it “not possible anymore for him to stay at Newwave,” as D’Iribarne told Sifted back in April. De La Rochebrochard told Sifted he had decided to leave the firm to focus on Kima Ventures (Xavier Niel’s early-stage investment firm), where he’s a managing partner, but says that after disagreements on the terms of his departure, he was pushed out by D’Iribarne (who owned 60% of the management company).
A ‘highly unusual’ situation
Two sources close to the fund tell Sifted that in May, shortly after he was ousted, LPs called an assembly at Newwave to change the constitution documents of the fund such that it would enable the LPs to dismiss the management company.
D’Iribarne declined to comment.
One source close to the fund described it as “highly unusual” for a “GP disagreement [to spill] into the LPs”: “That’s supposed to be sacro-sanct,” they said.
Niel’s professional relationship with Newwave’s cofounder De La Rochebrochard goes back to at least 2015, when he joined Kima as managing partner, according to his LinkedIn.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/newwave-xavier-niel-france-vc-news/
