Frst, the Paris-based VC agency with no vowel in its identify, is within the means of elevating its second fund. The agency has already reached a primary closing of €72 million (practically $80 million at right this moment’s trade charge).

And if there’s one factor to say about this new fund is that it’s enterprise as ordinary for Frst. Because the identify suggests, Frst goals to be the primary VC agency to put money into a tech startup.

Frst even tells me that round half of the VC agency’s time period sheets are despatched earlier than the startups are included. The agency has determined to maintain the very same formulation with some recent capital to take a position over the subsequent few years.

The crew led by Pierre Entremont and Bruno Raillard initially met after they had been working for Otium Enterprise as a part of Pierre-Edouard Stérin’s household workplace. In 2019, the crew created its personal VC agency and raised the preliminary Frst fund (referred to as Frst 2). On the time, Frst raised €90 million (practically $100 million at right this moment’s trade charge).

With right this moment’s new fund referred to as Frst 3, the funding agency expects to achieve the higher restrict of €100 million ($110 million). Frst has already secured funding from the European Funding Fund, Bpifrance’s Fonds Nationwide d’Amorçage 2, Axa Enterprise Companions and Isomer. A number of particular person buyers are additionally investing within the fund itself, akin to entrepreneurs working for Payfit, Owkin, Shippeo, Pigment, Electra, Supercell, Wolt, Aiven and Homa Video games.

Whereas Frst doesn’t deal with one vertical specifically, the agency believes that there can be loads of attention-grabbing funding alternatives within the coming years because of the rise of synthetic intelligence.

“The fast developments noticed within the discipline of Synthetic Intelligence over the previous few months and the disruptions they’re creating make a particularly favorable context for startups. From work to drugs, protection, schooling, or pure useful resource administration, the economic system and society as an entire are getting ready to bear unprecedented modifications,” Pierre Entremont mentioned in an announcement.

Total, when you embrace Otium Enterprise’s authentic €44 million fund, the Frst crew has greater than €200 million of belongings managed or suggested ($219 million). With this metric, Frst says that it’s now the most important seed fund centered on French startups particularly.

“France is especially properly positioned to play a number one position on this upcoming revolution, notably because of its manufacturing of prime technical expertise. Because of this Synthetic Intelligence has at all times been a really current theme in our investments, with, for example, Owkin or Doctrine 7 years in the past. Now we have additionally already made a number of investments with Frst 3 in groups with outstanding technical high quality,” Bruno Raillard mentioned in an announcement.

The Frst crew has invested in dozens of startups, akin to Pigment, Electra, Poolside, Doctrine, Payfit, Shippeo and Owkin. With its new fund, it plans to take a position between €1 million and €3 million in round 30 corporations.