Wingman Ventures seeks the best of Swiss startups and its diverse portfolio already spans from mobile commerce to robotics. The Zurich-based venture capital firm, which focuses on early-stage startups, announced today that it will change its name to Founder and has already raised $85 million for its new Fund II, with the goal of closing $120 million in the coming months.
Fund backers include institutional investors, family offices, and founders of unicorns such as Duolingo, Climeworks, GetYourGuide, Delivery Hero, and Scandit. So far it has had two exits: Insightness, a vision chip startup acquired by Sony, and Bring! Labs, a mobile commerce startup acquired by Swiss Post. There are two other exits in Founderful's portfolio, both in the B2B software space, which are expected to be in the double-digit millions.
Founding partner Alex Stöckl tells TechCrunch that when Founderful finished raising its first $90 million fund in 2020, it was Switzerland's first dedicated independent venture capital firm, investing only in the pre-seed stage.
“With this, overnight we disrupt the outdated business angels, accelerator and incubator programs and family offices that would give founders unfavorable conditions, cause early over-dilution and temper ambition levels to satisfy their conservative risk-to-risk ratio. return. profiles,” she states.
Founderful was launched in 2019 by Pascal Mathis, co-founder of GetYourGuide, a local travel marketplace. which will reach unicorn status in 2023and Eat.ch co-founder Lukas Weder.
Over the past four years, Founderful has made nearly 50 investments, including eight Swiss investments in 2023. Its Fund I invested $60 million in 40 startups, spanning 109 founders who created 1,093 jobs. In total, the Fund I portfolio raised more than $350 million in additional financing over three years.
The typical Fund II check size will be $1 million for pre-seed stage startups and up to $2 million for early stage startups.
Founderful seeks out startups in the B2B industrial and software sector and invests in their first funding rounds. Its portfolio includes companies in sectors such as robotics and industrial automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision technologies and materials sciences such as clean technologies, climate technologies and construction technologies.
Many of the founders in its portfolio come from universities and research institutions such as eth Zurich, through the Founderful Campus program. He says that around two-thirds of his entrepreneurs are graduates, PhDs or researchers from Switzerland's leading academic institutions and a third are former founders or employees of successful startups.
Founderful has already begun investing capital from Fund II, including alternative silicon chip maker Chiral Nano, ESG reporting platform Nala Earth, security robotics startup Ascento, robotics manufacturing company Saeki, skills platform Anthropos, bimolecular analysis company Isospec Analytics, lithium-ion battery developer Eightinks and humanoid robotics creator Faive Robotics.
Some of the other companies in Founderful's portfolio include drone startup Wingtra, with annual revenues of more than $20 million, plastic recycling company DePoly, and Corintis, focused on sustainable computing, a sustainable computing that works with technology giants like Microsoft, Google and Nvidia.
Stöckl says Founderful benefits startups because it invests again and again in the country at the same stage and has optimized its functions and support processes “like a Swiss watch, pun intended.” Since you have the same accounting standards, service providers, and talent pool, you can standardize the added value you provide to founders and their companies, helping them capture market leadership. Founderful also connects the Swiss ecosystem and the international venture capital community, introducing founding teams to investors of the next round.
In the future, Stöckl says that Founderful will continue to bet on Switzerland, investing each year in the 10 most ambitious founding teams as its lead investor for its first round of financing.
In a quote about why he entered Founderful's Fund II as a limited partner, Duolingo CTO and co-founder Severin Hacker said: “In building Duolingo, I've seen my fair share of venture capital firms and it's rare to collaborate with an investor. “. who is as meticulous and relentless in creating value for the founders they backed as the Founderful team.”
