Europe’s largest all-women led VC fund Revaia, which was founded in 2019 by Elina Berrebi and Alice Albizzati, has announced the final close of its second fund at €250m, over a year after securing a first tranche of €150m.
Revaia, which is based in Paris, invests in European and Israeli startups and scaleups at growth stage (Series B and beyond). Through its first fund, launched in 2021, it has backed companies like YC alum and search platform Algolia, now valued at $2.3bn, and cloud-based call centre Aircall.
It is sector-agnostic but focuses on B2B companies with a commitment to sustainability, meaning that investments account for ESG criteria ranging from company energy use to employer-employee relationships and governance practices.
The new fund will back a dozen companies with tickets ranging from €10-30m, and has already made six investments. About a third of the capital is dedicated to follow-on investments, particularly to enable portfolio companies to carry out M&A.
A challenging context
Albizzati says that amid a difficult fundraising market, the performance of Revaia’s first fund succeeded in convincing LPs, with portfolio companies growing on average 4x since investment.
“In terms of fundraising, everything is in slow motion at the moment,” says Albizzati. “It’s a market that is polarising with very big players that are capturing a large part of the flow, and then platforms like Revaia that are able to hold their own.”
Last year saw global VC firms like Balderton and Index raising billion-dollar figures for early-stage and growth funds.
Revaia’s historical investors like French public bank Bpifrance and the European Investment Fund (EIF) have returned to back the second fund, and the VC also brought in nine new institutional LPs including JP Morgan as well as banking and insurance corporate BNP Paribas Cardif. Revaia also has undisclosed private LPs.
Albizzati says that Revaia doubled its international investor — which now makes up 30% of its LPs — mostly thanks to the support of European and US investors.
A European champion
Despite the challenging context, Albizzati says that Revaia has also benefited from recent political shifts, as US president Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric has reinforced the need for European investors.
“Our thesis has always been to say that we need late-stage and growth funds in Europe to support our companies at all stages of development, and particularly when scaling up, which is a segment that is currently mainly dominated by international funds,” says Albizzati.
“The current political context shows that [this] thesis… is increasingly valid.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/revaia-250m-growth-fund/
