Paris-based Breega closes €250M fund, opens Barcelona office to back Iberian startups – TechCrunch

Paris-originated VC Breega wasn’t enormously well-known in the VC world (it only closed its 1st fund in 2015) until, perhaps, it started attracting attention with its second €110 million Seed fund, just under a year go. It’s portfolio now includes a number of scale-ups including Moneybox, Cuvva, Coverflex and Libeo. Perhaps part of its ‘secret sauce’ is how it has managed to put together an in house-team of experts in growth, talent, and comms, of which more later.

Suffice it to say, Breega seems to be punching all the right numbers. It’s now closed a €250 million venture fund, enabling it to move from funding Seed-stage European companies to now being able to go for Series A stage and beyond. It’s also now opened a Barcelona office (alongside London and Paris) headed up by Partner and recently nominated Head of European Venture, Isabelle Gallo. Breega’s aim is to finance at least 20 companies in total with the new fund. To date, Breega has backed 70 promising portfolio companies across 7 countries.

Breega’s investors include institutional players EIF (European Investment Fund) Bpifrance, Group Crédit Agricole, Amundi, LCL, Isomer Capital and a number of European entrepreneurs, which Breega hasn’t named specifically.

The new fund doubles its assets under management to half a billion euros. This is Breega’s fourth fundraise in seven years.

The new fund will have a strong focus on (although not limited to) fintech and insurtech companies.
Breega’s new fund has also now backed Keebo (fintech), UKIO (proptech) and Mila (insurtech).

Ben Marrel, Co-founder and CEO at Breega said in a statement: “Our fourth and largest fund to date will allow us to finance later stage companies at Series A stage and above and to continue to support our existing portfolio startups as they grow. This new money will also allow us to expand further into the increasingly dynamic Iberian tech ecosystem, one of the most dynamic in Europe.”

Current investments in the Iberian market include property tech Ukio, insurtech and employee benefits platform, Coverflex, and the fintech investment platform, Ninety-Nine.

Breega’s inhouse, free-of-charge ‘Scaling Squad’ consists of a team of experts in growth and pairing, talent, marketing and communication. Ben Stanway, founder and Co-CEO of Moneybox says this “acted like an extension of our own team.”

Replying to me over email, Marrel added: “We’re also very interested in seeing how advances in Blockchain technology and quantum computing will impact innovation – Breega is an early investor in Alice&Bob and we’re very excited to be accompanying them in the race to creating the world’s first fault-free quantum computer.”