Women backing Women: Meeting Ambre Soubiran and Elina Berrebi
Women-led company backed by women-led VC: Meeting Ambre Soubiran and Elina Berrebi
Following WVC: E (Women in Venture Capital Summit: Europe), the first pan-European event for women in VC, we caught up with Ambre Soubiran, CEO of Kaiko, and Elina Berrebi, Founding Partner of Revaia and investor in Kaiko.
Kaiko is the leading source of cryptocurrency market data, providing businesses with industrial grade and regulatory compliant data. Earlier this year they announced a $53 million Series B funding round, led by Eight Roads, with participation from Revaia and existing investors Alven, Point9, Anthemis, and Underscore.
In the below article, we discussed their respective backgrounds, their meeting within the context of the Series B fundraising, and their views on gender diversity.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina and @Ambre, could you describe your respective backgrounds?
Elina Berrebi: From a young age, I developed a passion for finance as I enjoyed mathematics. I completed a college degree in engineering at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, where I met Alice Albizzati, who later became my co-founder. During my university days, I joined a research project on long-term investment and sustainable finance, which triggered a desire to understand private equity investing and extra-financial performance. As a result, I decided to work at the French Sovereign Wealth Fund (FSI) for a few years. As a technology enthusiast, I later joined Eurazeo, participating in the creation of Eurazeo Growth (Eurazeo’s growth equity arm), where I supported leading tech companies such as Farfetch, PeopleDoc, and ContentSquare.
Before launching our fund together, Alice and I had very similar backgrounds, which allowed us to consolidate our convictions, starting with the belief that investment can have a positive and sustainable impact on society. As growth investors, we wanted to give even more meaning to our actions and measure our impact on the environment. That’s how Revaia was born, with the aim of finding the sustainable technology leaders of tomorrow.
Ambre Soubiran: By nature, I have always been a mathematician. I spent over 8 years at HSBC working on the public equity markets, but it never stopped me from exploring my interest in disruptive technologies and computer science. I remember in 2012 when I read the Bitcoin white paper on blockchain: I immediately knew this was the future. I continued at HSBC until 2016 while remaining interested in blockchain for banking technology and cryptocurrency.
I took over the CEO role at Kaiko in early 2017. When I joined, Kaiko had no revenue or employees, but we quickly developed the company into a start-up with more than 70 colleagues, and more than 150 clients, while raising €80m+ along the way. In the beginning, we were selling our data to clients via USB sticks in the post — the tech industry has significantly evolved since I joined. We have recently secured $53m in a Series B funding round with the help of Elina and Revaia, so I am very proud of my team and how far Kaiko has come in the crypto industry.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina, what were the biggest challenges you encountered launching your first fund?
Elina Berrebi: Just like startups, we had to quickly prove the concept of our strategy by building a portfolio. However, we had to secure our first investors to invest. The key challenge was finding investment opportunities, raising funds, and building a team simultaneously.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina and @Ambre, what resources were critical to your success as founders?
Elina Berrebi: As a founder, you need self-confidence and an excellent team to support you in all the critical decisions you need to make. I feel fortunate to have both: a good level of self-assurance reinforced by the presence of an exceptional co-founder at my side and a great team with a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
Ambre Soubiran: Since I joined the crypto industry at its beginning, perseverance is a resource that you can never have enough of. As an entrepreneur, your role also involves educating the public and investors on the industry and your company, which likewise demands perseverance and patience.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, as a former banker, what made you take the step to become an entrepreneur?
Ambre Soubiran: The path to entrepreneurship seemed like the best next step in my career considering my banker experience and interest in blockchain technology. There is inevitable demand for innovation within any industry, and when I saw that opportunity, I couldn’t turn it down. I was excited by the idea of applying blockchain technology to the capital markets industry by providing software-embedded efficiencies to trading mechanisms.
From meeting to investment: the journey to the $53m Series B
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina and @Ambre, how and in which context were you introduced?
Elina Berrebi: At Revaia, we carried out a lot of research on Web3 opportunities, and Kaiko came under our radar. We were impressed by Ambre’s journey and Kaiko’s growth path. A mutual acquaintance put us in contact at the right moment, and we developed a relationship.
Ambre Soubiran: On my side, I was impressed by Revaia’s ethos and Elina’s dedication to sustainable growth.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, what were you expecting from investors? What made you choose Elina and Revaia as an investor?
Ambre Soubiran: We were looking for expertise in capital markets and growth stage investing. Another important aspect I was looking for was a sustainable growth strategy because I wanted to preserve Kaiko’s identity while fulfilling all our ambitions. I knew that we needed an investor who could support our mission and allow us to grow organically. Revaia’s pan-European culture and entrepreneurial mindset aligned with Kaiko’s. Elina and her team have been very present by lending their expertise on growth stage investing.
Loreley Mac Donald: Similarly, @Elina, what made you believe in Ambre and Kaiko?
Elina Berrebi: We‘ve wanted to invest in the web3 segment for a while but have been highly selective, given our ESG thesis. Kaiko has met all the required criteria: digital finance being one of the most mature markets in the crypto space, a need for transparency & compliance, a healthy SaaS business model, and a world-class team. There is also a fundamental move from institutional investors into cryptocurrencies and smart contracts. We are very excited about this partnership with unlimited potential: we view Kaiko as the Bloomberg of cryptocurrencies, supporting the next-generation financial markets industry.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina, could you review Revaia’s investment strategy and other deals?
Elina Berrebi: Revaia is a sustainable growth equity investor. We focus on European growth-stage companies with global ambitions and sustainable leadership to bridge the gap between private and public markets. We are a high-conviction investor, supporting fundamental long-term trends and indexing how young generations consume at home or in the workplace. We have a strong appetite for “branded” SaaS businesses, with a portfolio of 11 SaaS companies out of 14 that are all loved by their end users. We have built a diversified portfolio of companies from series B, such as Welcome to the Jungle and Epsor, to series D+ (Aircall, Algolia, etc.). We pride ourselves on our virtuous business models and governance that is sensitive to the issues of gender, diversity, and impact. We have also prioritized specific themes such as education with Gohenry and climate change with Deepki.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, what were the main takeaways you can share from this fundraising experience?
Ambre Soubiran: Though our Series B fundraising round was very successful, securing $53m, the process was a marathon. Much preparation went into extensive due diligence and reassuring investors about the future of crypto. The term sheet was signed 1 week before Luna and the crypto market collapse, and it boosted Kaiko’s reputation because clients needed immediate and more in-depth information as to why the crypto market was crashing.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, do you think being a female CEO played a role in your fundraising?
Ambre Soubiran: I have been in the crypto industry for several years and have established a strong presence in the industry, building significant relationships with investors. Fundraising can sometimes be challenging, even for veterans in the sector. However, having an experienced and well-balanced team has a more substantial impact than gender.
Crypto, tech, VC: heading towards gender diversity
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, as a CEO in crypto, how do you perceive women’s place and the crypto industry’s evolution regarding gender equality?
Ambre Soubiran: In the media, crypto appears to be a secluded boy’s club — that is no longer the reality. There are now several female leaders, operators, and investors. Take me, for example, as well as our research director Clara Medalie, our COO Elodie de Marchi, etc. There is also Clarisse Hagège — Founder & CEO of Dfns, and Laura Shin, who covers all things crypto in her podcasts. We are all industry leaders and breaking down this stereotype. We need to look at what crypto stands for. There is an egalitarian and democratic principle at the foundation of crypto that is based on software and code. Blockchain is an empowering technology that roots for financial inclusion and fair distribution of incentives, which is very impactful for women.
Fundamentally, crypto is an empowering and inclusive tool, but like other tech industries, much progress still needs to be made. Discrimination is still common in the industry, but I hope we can widen the available talent pool and encourage existing companies to be more inclusive.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Ambre, at your company’s level, how do you promote diversity and inclusion at all levels?
Ambre Soubiran: Diversity and inclusion have always been a priority at Kaiko, which is best done by setting a positive example and not limiting your talent pool. The executive team is 50% women because we sought to find the best candidates. We have also made an effort for our team to be international — currently, we have 14 nationalities among our 60 employees. Everyone in the firm speaks English, which is unknown in a French start-up. I want Kaiko to be the company that people get poached to and for it to become a positive leader in the industry.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina, what’s your view on gender parity within startups and VCs?
Elina Berrebi: Recent data show that things are improving in VC, even if at a slow pace. The overall proportion of women in the VC and PE industry has risen to 38%, up from 30% in VC in 2019. What’s more, women now make up 20% of investment teams. I’m glad to see more diversity among the young hires at VC firms, and I hope existing general partners will create equal opportunities for these hires to become leaders eventually.
Regarding investments, we are aware that in the markets we target, women do not hold enough management or founder positions. At Revaia, we actively work with our portfolio companies to increase diversity at all levels: governance, executive, and operations. We measure, benchmark, set roadmaps, and help our portfolio improve on the D&I front. There’s an increasing amount of studies proving that more diverse/ balanced organizations perform better. It is not only an issue of fairness. It is a matter of performance, so this is naturally part of our value add support.
Looking at the total number of deals, the share captured by all-male founding teams remained unchanged over the past five years. While the amount of funding received by female and mixed teams has increased, it has decreased as a proportion of total funding.
Loreley Mac Donald: @Elina, at Revaia, do you have any specific initiatives to promote gender-balanced deal flow?
Elina Berrebi: By launching Revaia in 2018 and raising our first fund of €250 million, we became the largest growth tech fund in Europe launched by women. You naturally get gender-balanced dealflow when you have gender-balanced investment and operation teams, which is what we have.
In 2021, only 1.1% of overall capital raised went to female founding teams and 8.8% to mixed-gender founding teams. Getting those numbers to 50% is probably the work of a generation and involves multiple factors, but we start acting now.
We are intentional in our dealflow sourcing when it comes to reaching out to female entrepreneurs, and we run specific deep dives to ensure we identify all female-led startups in our scope. We prioritize companies led by mixed teams and then actively work to improve the diversity within our companies' governance bodies and the management teams when needed. We measure the state of the art and encourage them, through training on cognitive biases or exchanges of best practices, to increase the level of diversity.
