17 October, 2024
Forestay, Europe's newest $220M growth-stage VC fund, will focus on AI
Forestay, an emerging VC based out of Geneva, Switzerland, has been busy. This week it closed its second fund, Forestay Capital II, at a hard cap of $220 million. The VC wasn’t well known in Europe until it started to lead rounds in enterprise startups a couple of years ago, notably scanning software startup Scandit — which has raised $273 million to date — out of Zurich.
The Forestay II fund will invest across Europe and Israel, with a “sweet spot” of leading growth rounds of $10 million to $15 million, at the inflection point of a company, it said.
To date, the VC has backed 13 companies, including K2view, Nexthink, Scandit and Wasabi; three of these have reached unicorn status and two were acquired. Most recently, the firm backed Neural Concept, a company spun out from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, which raised $27 million in a Series B round to tackle fast manufacturing design with AI.
Forestay also led the Series A round for Portugal’s “predictive maintenance” startup Stratio with a $12 million Series A back in 2021.
The Forestay fund was founded as a fund of B-Flexion, the private investment vehicle created by the Bertarelli family that is best known for building Serono into the third-largest biotech business globally, before its merger with Merck KGaA.
Forestay is led by Frederic Wohlwend, the former Global Chief Digital Officer of Merck KGaA and Serono.
“As Chief Digital Officer in large corporations, mainly the biopharma clinical space, I had the chance to look at the entire value chain, from early research down to distribution, in fairly sizable enterprises,” he told TechCrunch over a call. “So by knowing the enterprise inside out, that’s why we decided to focus on enterprise and enterprise AI.”
While “it’s a highly competitive market,” Wohlwend said the fund will be “extremely focused in the way we do venture, adding: “We only do enterprise AI and SaaS. We don’t do any hardware, even sensors and stuff like this. We’re super focused in terms of stage — we mainly play in Series B. We can do A to C rounds, but our sweet spot is Series B at the inflection point. So we brand ourselves as a ‘nearly growth’ fund because we capture our targets as soon as they make some kind of revenue.”
He added that, besides Switzerland being “an interesting ecosystem,” Southern Europe is also coming up, as we recently reported.
Forestay’s new fund is also backed by Anaïs Ventures, the investment vehicle for certain members of the Firmenich family, which created a perfume empire.
In a statement, Julien Firmenich said: “Forestay’s focused investment strategy and operational acumen, honed through years of industry experience, align perfectly with our vision.”
Given its consumer markets are so fragmented by geography and language, Europe has carved out a very good market for SaaS and enterprise, and there are plenty of enterprise-focused VCs.
Indeed, an in-depth analysis of the top companies and trends in the SaaS market across Europe and Israel last year found the SaaS ecosystem market reset was being driven by the growth in generative AI. But Forestay’s emergence can only be a good thing, adding to the choice of funds for growth-stage startups in Europe, where growth capital is often harder to acquire than in the U.S.
The Complete SaaS Stage Agenda at Disrupt 2024
Software as a service (SaaS) is an ever-evolving industry. We’ll talk to some of the brightest minds and leaders in the industry — executives from early- and late-stage SaaS companies, leaders from the infrastructure companies that power the industry and the venture capitalists who fund them. Explore and enjoy by joining us at the SaaS Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024!
The SaaS Stage agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
From Salesforce to Sierra: Bret Taylor’s Journey in Tech Innovation
with Bret Taylor (Sierra)
Former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who recently co-founded Sierra, a new startup building a customer experience AI agent, will join us to talk about why he thinks AI agents are going to transform enterprise software. We’ll also chat about what it’s like going from a big company like Salesforce to a brand-new startup — and his life as a mover and shaker in Silicon Valley, including being board chair at Twitter when Elon Musk bought the company.
The New Data Pipeline
with George Fraser (Fivetran), Chet Kapoor (Datastax), and Vanessa Larco (NEA)
The rise of modern AI applications has put a renewed emphasis on the importance of the data that underpins them. But simply having data isn’t enough; you also need the tools to manage it, secure it and build the pipelines to let it flow between applications. In this session, we’ll talk to some of the companies that are building the tools to make that happen.
Leadership Challenges: Embracing Slack’s Evolution Under Salesforce
with Denise Dresser (Slack by Salesforce)
Join us for a one-on-one chat with Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who became the company’s third CEO in 10 months and has had to lead her organization through a time of turbulence while navigating being part of the Salesforce family and all that entails.
What’s Next in Open Source as a Business Model?
with Casey Aylward (Accel), Scott Johnston (Docker), and Rowan Trollope (Redis)
Open source has become the default business model for many tech startups. However, the success of the movement hasn’t been without challenges as businesses now try to balance the ideals of open source with the realities of running a business in an ever-changing competitive environment. Join us to hear industry leaders discuss how they navigate these complexities and what the future holds for open source as a sustainable business model
So You’re Going to Get Hacked: Advice from the Front Lines
with Heather Gantt-Evans (Marqeta) and George Gerchow (MongoDB)
Cyberattacks are inevitable, but disasters are avoidable. Hear from experienced security defenders who have built and grown security teams as they share what you need to know to get ahead of cyberattackers before they strike.
Scaling Trust to Unicorn Status with Vanta’s CEO Christina Cacioppo
with Christina Cacioppo (Vanta)
SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR — few people want to deal with them, but to even be considered for a deal, many B2B startups now need to comply with one or more compliance frameworks. Vanta, which became a unicorn in 2022, has become somewhat of a standard of its own for helping businesses automate large parts of their initial and recurring audits. We’ll talk to Vanta CEO and co-founder Christina Cacioppo about what it has been like to build and scale a trust management startup and how AI and other new technologies are shaping its future.
From Seed to Success: What VCs Want to See from Early-Stage Founders
with Jyoti Bansal (Harness), Rudina Seseri (Glasswing Ventures) and Chelcie Taylor (Notable Capital)
Every startup begins with a founder with a germ of an idea. How does it mature into an actual business? Venture capitalists have to sort through pitches every day to find the gems that will become successful companies. We’ll speak to a trio of investors to find out what they look for in early-stage companies.
About TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is where you’ll find innovation for every stage of your startup journey. Whether you’re a budding founder with a revolutionary idea, a seasoned startup looking to scale or an investor seeking the next big thing, TechCrunch Disrupt offers unparalleled resources, connections and expert insights to propel your venture forward. Over 10,000 startup leaders will be attending this year’s event on October 28-30 in San Francisco at Moscone West.
We can’t wait to hear from these SaaS leaders at this year’s show. Purchase your tickets here before prices go up. The last day to save up to $600 ends on August 23.
The Complete SaaS Stage Agenda at Disrupt 2024
Software as a service (SaaS) is an ever-evolving industry. We’ll talk to some of the brightest minds and leaders in the industry — executives from early- and late-stage SaaS companies, leaders from the infrastructure companies that power the industry and the venture capitalists who fund them. Explore and enjoy by joining us at the SaaS Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024!
The SaaS Stage agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
From Salesforce to Sierra: Bret Taylor’s Journey in Tech Innovation
with Bret Taylor (Sierra)
Former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who recently co-founded Sierra, a new startup building a customer experience AI agent, will join us to talk about why he thinks AI agents are going to transform enterprise software. We’ll also chat about what it’s like going from a big company like Salesforce to a brand-new startup — and his life as a mover and shaker in Silicon Valley, including being board chair at Twitter when Elon Musk bought the company.
The New Data Pipeline
with George Fraser (Fivetran), Chet Kapoor (Datastax), and Vanessa Larco (NEA)
The rise of modern AI applications has put a renewed emphasis on the importance of the data that underpins them. But simply having data isn’t enough; you also need the tools to manage it, secure it and build the pipelines to let it flow between applications. In this session, we’ll talk to some of the companies that are building the tools to make that happen.
Leadership Challenges: Embracing Slack’s Evolution Under Salesforce
with Denise Dresser (Slack by Salesforce)
Join us for a one-on-one chat with Slack CEO Denise Dresser, who became the company’s third CEO in 10 months and has had to lead her organization through a time of turbulence while navigating being part of the Salesforce family and all that entails.
What’s Next in Open Source as a Business Model?
with Casey Aylward (Accel), Scott Johnston (Docker), and Rowan Trollope (Redis)
Open source has become the default business model for many tech startups. However, the success of the movement hasn’t been without challenges as businesses now try to balance the ideals of open source with the realities of running a business in an ever-changing competitive environment. Join us to hear industry leaders discuss how they navigate these complexities and what the future holds for open source as a sustainable business model
So You’re Going to Get Hacked: Advice from the Front Lines
with Heather Gantt-Evans (Marqeta) and George Gerchow (MongoDB)
Cyberattacks are inevitable, but disasters are avoidable. Hear from experienced security defenders who have built and grown security teams as they share what you need to know to get ahead of cyberattackers before they strike.
Scaling Trust to Unicorn Status with Vanta’s CEO Christina Cacioppo
with Christina Cacioppo (Vanta)
SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR — few people want to deal with them, but to even be considered for a deal, many B2B startups now need to comply with one or more compliance frameworks. Vanta, which became a unicorn in 2022, has become somewhat of a standard of its own for helping businesses automate large parts of their initial and recurring audits. We’ll talk to Vanta CEO and co-founder Christina Cacioppo about what it has been like to build and scale a trust management startup and how AI and other new technologies are shaping its future.
From Seed to Success: What VCs Want to See from Early-Stage Founders
with Jyoti Bansal (Harness), Rudina Seseri (Glasswing Ventures) and Chelcie Taylor (Notable Capital)
Every startup begins with a founder with a germ of an idea. How does it mature into an actual business? Venture capitalists have to sort through pitches every day to find the gems that will become successful companies. We’ll speak to a trio of investors to find out what they look for in early-stage companies.
About TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is where you’ll find innovation for every stage of your startup journey. Whether you’re a budding founder with a revolutionary idea, a seasoned startup looking to scale or an investor seeking the next big thing, TechCrunch Disrupt offers unparalleled resources, connections and expert insights to propel your venture forward. Over 10,000 startup leaders will be attending this year’s event on October 28-30 in San Francisco at Moscone West.
We can’t wait to hear from these SaaS leaders at this year’s show. Purchase your tickets here before prices go up. The last day to save up to $600 ends on August 23.
Forestay, Europe's newest $220M growth-stage VC fund, will focus on AI
Forestay, an emerging VC based out of Geneva, Switzerland, has been busy. This week it closed its second fund, Forestay Capital II, at a hard cap of $220 million. The VC wasn’t well known in Europe until it started to lead rounds in enterprise startups a couple of years ago, notably scanning software startup Scandit — which has raised $273 million to date — out of Zurich.
The Forestay II fund will invest across Europe and Israel, with a “sweet spot” of leading growth rounds of $10 million to $15 million, at the inflection point of a company, it said.
To date, the VC has backed 13 companies, including K2view, Nexthink, Scandit and Wasabi; three of these have reached unicorn status and two were acquired. Most recently, the firm backed Neural Concept, a company spun out from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, which raised $27 million in a Series B round to tackle fast manufacturing design with AI.
Forestay also led the Series A round for Portugal’s “predictive maintenance” startup Stratio with a $12 million Series A back in 2021.
The Forestay fund was founded as a fund of B-Flexion, the private investment vehicle created by the Bertarelli family that is best known for building Serono into the third-largest biotech business globally, before its merger with Merck KGaA.
Forestay is led by Frederic Wohlwend, the former Global Chief Digital Officer of Merck KGaA and Serono.
“As Chief Digital Officer in large corporations, mainly the biopharma clinical space, I had the chance to look at the entire value chain, from early research down to distribution, in fairly sizable enterprises,” he told TechCrunch over a call. “So by knowing the enterprise inside out, that’s why we decided to focus on enterprise and enterprise AI.”
While “it’s a highly competitive market,” Wohlwend said the fund will be “extremely focused in the way we do venture, adding: “We only do enterprise AI and SaaS. We don’t do any hardware, even sensors and stuff like this. We’re super focused in terms of stage — we mainly play in Series B. We can do A to C rounds, but our sweet spot is Series B at the inflection point. So we brand ourselves as a ‘nearly growth’ fund because we capture our targets as soon as they make some kind of revenue.”
He added that, besides Switzerland being “an interesting ecosystem,” Southern Europe is also coming up, as we recently reported.
Forestay’s new fund is also backed by Anaïs Ventures, the investment vehicle for certain members of the Firmenich family, which created a perfume empire.
In a statement, Julien Firmenich said: “Forestay’s focused investment strategy and operational acumen, honed through years of industry experience, align perfectly with our vision.”
Given its consumer markets are so fragmented by geography and language, Europe has carved out a very good market for SaaS and enterprise, and there are plenty of enterprise-focused VCs.
Indeed, an in-depth analysis of the top companies and trends in the SaaS market across Europe and Israel last year found the SaaS ecosystem market reset was being driven by the growth in generative AI. But Forestay’s emergence can only be a good thing, adding to the choice of funds for growth-stage startups in Europe, where growth capital is often harder to acquire than in the U.S.
Forestay, Europe's newest $220M growth-stage VC fund, will focus on AI
Forestay, an emerging VC based out of Geneva, Switzerland, has been busy. This week it closed its second fund, Forestay Capital II, at a hard cap of $220 million. The VC wasn’t well known in Europe until it started to lead rounds in enterprise startups a couple of years ago, notably scanning software startup Scandit — which has raised $273 million to date — out of Zurich.
The Forestay II fund will invest across Europe and Israel, with a “sweet spot” of leading growth rounds of $10 million to $15 million, at the inflection point of a company, it said.
To date, the VC has backed 13 companies, including K2view, Nexthink, Scandit and Wasabi; three of these have reached unicorn status and two were acquired. Most recently, the firm backed Neural Concept, a company spun out from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, which raised $27 million in a Series B round to tackle fast manufacturing design with AI.
Forestay also led the Series A round for Portugal’s “predictive maintenance” startup Stratio with a $12 million Series A back in 2021.
The Forestay fund was founded as a fund of B-Flexion, the private investment vehicle created by the Bertarelli family that is best known for building Serono into the third-largest biotech business globally, before its merger with Merck KGaA.
Forestay is led by Frederic Wohlwend, the former Global Chief Digital Officer of Merck KGaA and Serono.
“As Chief Digital Officer in large corporations, mainly the biopharma clinical space, I had the chance to look at the entire value chain, from early research down to distribution, in fairly sizable enterprises,” he told TechCrunch over a call. “So by knowing the enterprise inside out, that’s why we decided to focus on enterprise and enterprise AI.”
While “it’s a highly competitive market,” Wohlwend said the fund will be “extremely focused in the way we do venture, adding: “We only do enterprise AI and SaaS. We don’t do any hardware, even sensors and stuff like this. We’re super focused in terms of stage — we mainly play in Series B. We can do A to C rounds, but our sweet spot is Series B at the inflection point. So we brand ourselves as a ‘nearly growth’ fund because we capture our targets as soon as they make some kind of revenue.”
He added that, besides Switzerland being “an interesting ecosystem,” Southern Europe is also coming up, as we recently reported.
Forestay’s new fund is also backed by Anaïs Ventures, the investment vehicle for certain members of the Firmenich family, which created a perfume empire.
In a statement, Julien Firmenich said: “Forestay’s focused investment strategy and operational acumen, honed through years of industry experience, align perfectly with our vision.”
Given its consumer markets are so fragmented by geography and language, Europe has carved out a very good market for SaaS and enterprise, and there are plenty of enterprise-focused VCs.
Indeed, an in-depth analysis of the top companies and trends in the SaaS market across Europe and Israel last year found the SaaS ecosystem market reset was being driven by the growth in generative AI. But Forestay’s emergence can only be a good thing, adding to the choice of funds for growth-stage startups in Europe, where growth capital is often harder to acquire than in the U.S.
Varsity is a new early-stage VC fund based in Paris
It’s not every day that a new VC firm comes out of stealth. This time, Varsity is announcing its first fund. Founded by a former Société Générale executive and two VC investors who worked at Serena Capital, Varsity has already raised €70 million ($75 million at today’s exchange rate) to back early-stage startups across several verticals.
This is just a first close, as Varsity hopes it’ll be able to raise as much as €150 million ($161 million) for Varsity I. Overall, the firm plans to invest in roughly 30 startups in Europe. Some of Varsity’s limited partners include French public bank Bpifrance, MACSF, Sogecap and Elevation Capital Partners (with the creation of a feeder fund).
It means that Varsity plans to invest anything between €1 million and €5 million, depending on the investment opportunity with the option to invest in follow-on investments — Varsity has already invested €15 million in five companies. While the team doesn’t have a specific vertical in mind, it says that it plans to invest in finance, health, enterprise software and climate startups.
The three founding members are Didier Valet, the former deputy CEO at Société Générale, as well as Kamel Zeroual and Florent Thomas, who spent some time working for Serena Capital.
Florent Thomas (pictured right) also created TalentLetter back in 2018. It’s an email newsletter for tech startups looking for potential hires. Every week, TalentLetter sends two profiles that have been selected because they can have a high impact at a fast-growing startup. Along with Marie Brayer, they also created Karma Driven, an invite-only job board.
As for Kamel Zeroual (pictured left), he created the Startup Mafia podcast, interviewing several executives working for a handful of successful tech startups. During the first season, he interviewed Swile executives. He shifted his focus to Alan and Checkout.com for seasons two and three.
Both already know quite a few people in the startup ecosystem. So it’s going to be interesting to see how the Varsity team plans to leverage these platforms to identify interesting investment opportunities and make sure they perform well at later stages.
Early Stage 2024 Audience Choice winner revealed
You voted and the results are finally in! We’re excited to announce that you chose Dana Louie, HubSpot’s Senior Manager of Corporate Development, as this year’s Audience Choice roundtable winner at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024.
The winning Early Stage 2024 roundtable
Dana’s roundtable “Exiting via M&A: What Acquirers Are Looking for and How You Can Prepare for a Successful Acquisition” will cover factors companies’ consider when evaluating M&A opportunities, real-world perspectives and strategies that drive acquisitions, and it will provide practical insights to maximize a successful acquisition.
Grab your pass today, and hear from Dana and other leaders at TechCrunch’s annual founder summit on April 25 in Boston.
More about Dana Louie
Dana leads strategic prioritization and execution for acquisitions and corporate venture capital investments. In her role, Dana works closely with executive leadership to build business cases, execute deals, and analyze opportunities throughout the acquisition process. She works closely with a number of startups in the HubSpot Ventures portfolio and most recently closed HubSpot’s largest deal, a $150 million acquisition of Clearbit.
Prior to HubSpot, Dana spent time at a venture-backed startup and in consulting before receiving her MBA from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, where she and her husband still reside.
What to expect at Early Stage 2024
During this one-day startup conference, you’ll learn about legal issues, fundraising, marketing, growth, product-market fit, pitching, recruiting and more. We’re talking dozens of highly engaging presentations, sessions and roundtables with interactive Q&As and plenty of time for networking. At TechCrunch Early Stage you’ll walk away with a deeper working understanding of topics and skills that are essential to startup success.
As data takes center stage, Codified wants to bring flexibility to governance
Over the last decade, we’ve seen data grow in increasing importance to enterprise software, and that role has grown even more pronounced more recently with the rise of large language models. At the same time, there has been a corresponding rise in regulation around the use of that data, and figuring out how to stay in compliance is more critical and challenging than ever.
That’s where Codified, an early-stage startup that was nurtured last year inside venture capital firm Madrona Venture, comes into the picture. The company was built from the ground up from a data veteran with an eye toward solving the data compliance problem, and today it announced a $4 million seed round.
Company founder and CEO Yatharth Gupta sees that data is at the center of today’s technology, yet companies struggle to control access to it. “Every company has a lot of data. They want people to use this data. In order for people to use this data, they want to make sure that the right people have access and the wrong people don’t. It is an incredibly tough problem for people to solve,” Gupta told TechCrunch.
“So at Codified our mission is simple. We want to empower your company’s innovation by making sure that you can easily get access to data in a compliant manner within your company.”
As Gupta sees it, many large companies are authoring policies and trying to implement them in various ways, but he sees software that is too rigid for today’s use cases, leaving them vulnerable, especially when they have to change policy. He wants to change that by translating policy into code that can be implemented in a variety of ways, connected to various applications that need access to the data, and easily changed when new customers or user categories come along.
“We let you author policies in natural language, in a declarative way or using a UI — pick your favorite way — but when those policies are authored, we can codify them into something that can be implemented in a number of ways and can be very easily changed,” he said.
To that end, the company also enables customers to set conditions, such as whether you’ve had security training in the last 365 days, or you’re already part of a team working on a sensitive project. Ultimately, this enables companies to set hard-coded data access rules based on who the employee is and the applications they are using or projects they are part of, rather than relying on creating groups on which to base these rules. The problem with a group approach is people move around and change jobs, and the groups don’t always keep up, he says.
Gupta’s background includes 15 years at Microsoft in several positions, including running the Azure Databricks product, and a couple of years at SingleStore, where he ran product and engineering. Both jobs, he says, were heavily involved in data and he saw the kinds of problems he’s trying to solve with Codified.
The product is still in development. Gupta has been working with several design partners to refine the idea, and he’s working with five full-time employees and another half dozen contractors. He hopes to have a release candidate later this year.
Investors in today’s round include Vine Ventures, Soma Capital and Madrona Venture Labs, where Codified incubated last year.
Silence is an early-stage climate tech VC fund with $35M
Silence wants to shake things up when it comes to climate tech investment. This new angel-style VC firm has already raised $35 million and plans to make dozens of small investments in climate startups to help them apply the tech startup playbook.
The Silence team is led by Borja Moreno de los Rios, who acts as a solo general partner for Silence’s original fund. Before starting Silence, he was a venture partner at FJ Labs. He also founded Merlin, an hourly jobs marketplace in the U.S.
With Silence, Borja wants to apply his experience to climate investment. He has surrounded himself with a team of tech experts who have all done the work to become climate experts as well.
“I have been very connected to nature and the environment ever since I was a child. I grew up water-skiing competitively from a very young age. Since I was five or six years old, I spent every weekend and all my vacations by lakes and in the countryside,” Borja told me.
“But as I was growing through my tech career, I always had an eye on trying to learn as much as possible so I could really have an impact at the climate tech level. So after my last company got acquired, I knew that I wanted to do something in climate,” he added later in the conversation.
A silent partner
Since the first close of the fund in June 2022, Silence has already invested in 22 different companies. They apply the same investment strategy (with a few exceptions). Silence doesn’t lead rounds and doesn’t take board seats.
This way, they believe they can remain neutral and unbiased over the long run — just like an angel investor, but with a larger ticket size. “The average ticket size is around $300,000. We invest from pre-seed to Series A and we invest anything from $100,000 up to $700,000,” Borja said. There will be some follow-on investments for the most promising investments.
They also don’t compete with top-tier VC funds, meaning they can get invited to participate in very competitive deals. “We wanted to find a way so that we were not competing with the current VCs,” Borja said. For instance, Silence already participated in several rounds with well-known VC firms, such as Point Nine, FJ Labs, FifthWall, FirstMark Capital and Lowercarbon Capital.
I’m not going to list all portfolio companies (check the portfolio page), but Silence’s portfolio companies are building virtual power plants, energy management systems, home energy management systems, financing platforms for solar equipment and circularity-focused marketplaces.
“There’s one that just grew really fast. And we’re very proud because we invested in pre-seed and we never lead deals. But in this case, the company was struggling to close a round because everyone was saying, ‘We’ll put money only if you find a lead.’ And no one wanted to be the lead. So we told them, ‘We’ll be your lead,’” Borja said.
“This is a company called Cardino, which is a used EV marketplace. So we invested with just the deck, and they’re doing like €72 million in GMV in nine months. And now they raised a seed round with Point Nine leading the seed. So obviously, it’s super early, but so far so good.”
In addition to Borja, Sara Ramos Colmenarejo left the Hummingbird team to join Silence. Guilherme Penna, who previously worked at Global Founders Capital, is also an investor at Silence. Finally, Brendan Hayes acts as the CFO and COO for the fund.
Silence’s limited partners include general partners at other VC firms, such as FirstMark Capital, DST Global, FJ Labs, Point Nine and Hummingbird, as well as family offices, successful founders, etc. Overall, Borja seemed like an enthusiastic investor. Even though Silence wants to remain a small, angel-style investor, he couldn’t stop listing some of his portfolio companies.
“There’s a company called Electryone that’s really early that’s building a virtual power plant software that we’ve invested in and we really like,” he said. “We also invested in a company called Runwise in the U.S., which basically has built a technology that integrates with the heating system in a building and then has sensors around the building and is constantly optimizing the temperature.”
Interestingly, unlike many climate funds, Silence doesn’t want to participate in deep tech investments with a very long-term timeframe. Borja believes Silence’s expertise is in SaaS and marketplaces.
“In the end — I know this is kind of controversial — but, in the end, I think we are going to be creating more value towards climate through these safer investments than if we invest in ten moonshots and all of them fail,” he said.