Marie Outtier, one of French tech’s most high-profile startup founders-turned-investors, is joining Paris-based early-stage VC Ovni Capital as the firm announces the final close of its debut €60m fund.
Outtier founded an AI-powered marketing tool called Aiden.ai in London in 2016, which was acquired by Twitter (now X) in 2019 for an undisclosed sum. For the following three years she worked for the social media giant in the US, before returning to Europe in 2022, a few months after Elon Musk acquired the platform.
For the past five years Outtier has been an active business angel, backing around 30 companies in the US, the UK and Europe. She has also been a scout for global investor Accel, and more recently a venture partner for UK-based VC Firstminute Capital.
She says her background was a match for Ovni Capital, which she is now joining as a general partner, because the firm targets European founders who have plans to expand internationally from an early stage, with a focus on the US.
“I left France when I was 25 years old, I spent 14 years abroad, I launched my company in London and I was acquired by a US-based Big Tech company,” she tells Sifted. “I am a statistical rarity and I am looking for people like me.”
“We’re looking for Europe-born founders but with a level of ambition that goes beyond average.”
Joining Ovni Capital
Ovni Capital was launched in 2021 by former entrepreneur and VC Augustin Sayer, investor Arnaud Laurent, judo athlete Thomas Renaudin and Matthieu Stefani, the host of popular startup podcast ‘Génération Do It Yourself’.
“I chose to join them because I am passionate about the entrepreneurial DNA,” says Outtier. “There aren’t enough funds in Europe with teams that have both operational and financial experience.”
The firm writes tickets ranging from €250k-2m to back European deeptech startups at seed stage. It closed a first €15m in 2023 and has since invested in a dozen companies, including French biotech Spaictra, cybersecurity company Trout Software and semiconductor developer Ncodin.
The majority (80%) of these investments include a foreign fund, according to the firm, as part of its strategy to expose founders to opportunities for international expansion.
The final close means that about €20m will be deployed to back around 20 new businesses, with €25m kept for follow-on investments in portfolio companies.
Half of the fund (€30m) is backed by 200 private investors ranging from Quantum Surgical founder Bertin Nahum to French DJ Martin Solveig. The other half comes from institutional LPs including public bank Bpifrance, consultancy firm PwC and insurance company GSMC.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/marie-outtier-ovni-capital/
