[EN] 2018, what a year for Elaia!
The beginning of a new year is always a good time to look back on this past (busy) year! Let’s flashback on 2018!
🏆 2018 was busy: We were lucky to meet with over 500 entrepreneurial teams, out of the 2,000+ requests for investment we received — thanks for giving us a bit of your time, we know how precious it is — and investing in 6 amazing companies (check out the details below)!
🏆 2018 was exciting: we had 4 exits in our previous funds
🏆 2018 was new : New fund, New identity (and obviously a new clothing line associated), New teammates, New Medium account (follow us!) A lot of change but still the same values and ambition!
Enough about us, here is our portfolio news.
In 2018, 6 awesome companies joined the Elaia family!
We are super proud of the entrepreneurs that joined the Elaia Family this year:
- Armis : Dan & David help physical retailers to advertise locally at scale. 🇫🇷 (Read more about our investment here)
2. Geoblink : Jaime enables companies to take the best location-based decisions. 🇪🇸 (Read more about our investment here)
3. Uwinloc : Eric and Jan have developped a battery-less assets location solution. 🇫🇷 (Read more about our investment here)
4. Gleamer : Christian, Alexis and Nicolas are doing a great job at improving radiologists’ productivity thanks to an AI platform. 🇫🇷 (Read more about our invesment here)
5. Sancare brings data science and machine learning techniques to the medical sector. 🇫🇷 (Read more about our invesment here)
6. Acorus Networks, Raphael, Benjamin and Olivier have set up an anti-DDOS protection and mitigation company. 🇫🇷 (Read more about our investment here)
In 2018, we exited 4 of our portfolio companies!
When you invest in a company you become the co-pilot and as sad as it can be when a plane lands, we are super proud of our 4 portfolio companies that got acquired this year:
đź’Ą Orchestra Networks was acquired by TIBCO Software and (spoiler alert) it allows our 1st fund (the one that first invest in Criteo) to make a multiple of over ten times the amount invested! (Read more here)
đź’Ą CookAngel: Norac Foods became the majority shareholder of CookAngel (Read more here)
đź’Ą Ykone was sold to the group AuFeminin (Read more here)
đź’Ą ScoopIt was bought by LinkFluence (Read more here)
Congrats to the teams that have been doing working like crazy to get there!
In 2018, we announced the closing of our new fund: PSL Innovation Fund
We are delighted to go a step further in our belief that technology transfer is key by closing our new fund: PSL Innovation Fund which announced a first closing of 40M in June.
“Now the real work begins”.
Within a couple of months, the team has recruited new team members (đź‘‹ Franck, CĂ©dric & Sofia) and has already made 2 investments in great teams: Gleamer & Sancare.
This 1st closing of the new fund is also an opportunity to thank everybody who has trusted us over the years. Thank you entrepreneurs (we wouldn’t be here without you!), LPs (we wouldn’t exist without you either!) and our team, you rock!
In 2018, we welcomed 6 new team members!
We are just like our startups: as we grow, HR becomes critical! Our team grew of 40% within a year and we are thrilled to have onboard to our new teammates that still represent our diversity in terms of age, gender and background!
- Franck, our biotech partner based in Toulouse
- Emmanuel, our Franco-Mexican CFO who worked in finance for Exane BNP Paris, Renault and Vranken-Pommery Monopole group as well as contributing to the launch of Unilend!
- CĂ©dric, our black sheep who has gone from corporate to entrepreneur to investment!
- Malo, our intern 4 years ago who is just back from the states where he received his MS from Stanford and then founded an infrastructure-agnostic deep learning platform.
- Sofia, who started her career as investor at BPIFrance, became an entrepreneur and headed the acceleration & incubation programs of Polytechnique!
- Louisa, who after pitching in front of must of us in the team while being an entrepreneur, decided to join to head our marketing and communication!
Say hi 👋 if you come across them at European events or conferences! And if you’re looking for Franck, have a look towards the Toulouse Village by CA!
We are all super excited by 2019 which given the market will probably be challenging but we are ready and can’t wait to get started!
The entire Elaia team wishes you a happy holiday and a fantastic 2019 !
