Its a breakup of some sort, but with no hard feelings.
The team behind Paris-based VC firm Otium Venture is creating a new management company called Frst and raising a new fund.But first, lets talk about Otium Venture.
Smartbox founder Pierre-Edouard Strins family office created Otium Venture and Otium Brands to manage his startup investments.
Over the past four years, the Otium Venture team participated in a dozen seed rounds, such as Payfit, Doctrine and Owkin.
It represented around $45 million in total (40 million).With Frst, the Otium Venture team is essentially creating a spinoff company with no connection to Pierre-Edouard Strins family office.
The team is still led by Pierre Entremont and Bruno Raillard, with Judith Tripard and Gabriel de Vinzelles also following them.Frst is a more traditional VC firm with multiple limited partners investing in the first Frst fund (yep, first Frst fund).
The firm has already raised $67 million (60 million) from the European Investment Fund, Bpifrance, Axa Venture Partners, Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja from Supercell, Michal Benabou from Vente-Prive, Stanislas de Quercize from Cartier and others.Eventually, Frst plans to reach $90 million (80 million) with this fund.Frst plans to invest at the seed level with investments ranging from 0.5 million to 3 million.
Theyre focusing on Paris-based startups and say that big tech companies are bound to appear here in France.As for existing Otium Ventures investments? Pierre-Edouard Strin and the Frst team have set up a consulting contract so that they can follow their investments after the change.