MiddleGame Ventures, a Luxembourg-based VC firm focusing on fintech, has hit the first close of a targeted €150m fund, telling Sifted it’s raised roughly a third of that some — around €52m.
Founded in 2018, the firm has previously invested in UK neobank Tandem and Dublin-based SME lender Wayflyer. The new fund is MiddleGame’s third and will focus on startups at Series A and Series B stages.
Its launch comes at a time when fintech — long the star of Europe’s startup sector — is playing second fiddle to climate tech. In the first quarter of this year, Europe’s fintech companies brought in €2.4bn in equity funding across 187 deals while investors funnelled €3.6bn into climate tech startups in 288 deals, according to data collected by Sifted.
MiddleGame Ventures co-founder Pascal Bouvier isn’t phased, however. While he admits that climate-focused funds may have an easier time raising capital at the moment, he’s confident that MiddleGame’s specialised focus will attract investors.
“Sectors have a certain sexiness and come and go in terms of that sexiness,” Bouvier says in an interview with Sifted. “There’s always a flavour of the month.”
Some of the LPs already backing the fund include the European Investment Fund (EIF), the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and financial data company S&P Global.
Tokenisation in focus
With an LP base largely in Europe, MiddleGame plans to focus on the region. And while Bouvier described MiddleGame as a straight “fintech investor” he says it’s looking to expand its remit into deeptech and cybersecurity companies adjacent to fintech.
Some of the high-profile investments the firm has previously made are also in the world of digital assets: it’s previously invested in crypto payments and custody company Ripple and crypto market maker Keyrock.
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Right now, Bouvier says the firm is focused on startups at the intersection of blockchain and capital markets. In particular, he’s interested in the tokenisation of financial assets — the process of converting ownership of real-world assets, like stock or real estate, into tradeable digital tokens on a blockchain.
“We believe that there is a brand new future for assets out there,” he says.
MiddleGame’s interest in crypto comes as the sector appears to be making a comeback following regulatory progress both in the US and Europe — notably the rolling out of the EU’s regulatory framework for the sector MiCA and the approval of eleven Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the US.
But, rather than investing in the actual tokens themselves, he says he’s looking to invest in startups building the infrastructure for tokenisation. Along with Keyrock and Ripple, the firm has also invested in Berlin-based crypto custodian Finoa.
MiddleGame is set to make its first investment out of its new fund in the next month. Bouvier says it’s targeting a final close of the proposed €150m by the beginning of next year.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/middlegame-new-fund-news/
