NewAlpha Asset Management (NewAlpha) has closed its first venture capital fund with capital commitments of EUR56 million including an EUR15 million investment by the French Tech Acceleration fund, managed by Bpifrance as part of the French Tech initiative and financed by the Investments for the Future Programme (PIA).
The fund, targeted at French institutional investors (banks, insurers, pension funds), aims to build and develop a diversified portfolio of innovative FinTech and InsurTech startups. Additionally, it allows limited partners to keep a close eye on the technological changes affecting banking, insurance and asset management.
Primarily invested in un-listed French FinTechs, the fund benefits from a strong European deal flow generated by the ecosystem that NewAlpha has developed with its shareholders, investors, affiliate asset managers and NewAlpha’s expertise in structuring seeding and incubation deals in France and abroad.
NewAlpha FinTech was the most active French Capital Venture fund dedicated to FinTech in 2016. Most notably, it was the lead investor in several startups, including Heoh, iTrust, Unilend, Lydia, TrackInsight and most recently Wikifolio, the fund’s first European investment.
These start-ups benefit from the financial and business support that NewAlpha has been providing for several years to its other incubation funds, dedicated to emerging asset managers.
Lior Derhy, Director of Private Equity at NewAlpha, says: “With our NewAlpha FinTech fund, we wanted to combine our expertise in the financial industry with the best practices of Venture Capital and incubation. We met with several hundred startups since the end of 2015, which confirms the depth and dynamic of FinTech opportunities in France and Europe. The constructive evolution of the relationships between the industry’s established players and startups should lead to a strong democratisation of FinTech innovations and offer attractive investment opportunities.”
