Fintech-focused investment firm MiddleGame Ventures (MGV) has raised a new fund targeting post-seed, series A and series B lead investments in Europe and North America.
MGV’s Venture Fund I has achieved its first close, with a final close target size of EUR150 million. It will invest in and partner with B2B and B2B2C startups driving the transformation of financial services from analog to digital and from centralised to decentralised, with an emphasis on middleware and back office solutions. Its remit extends to enabling technologies such as RegTech, Digital Identities, “FinData” and crypto-enabled infrastructure across banking, asset management, insurance, payments, and capital markets.
The Luxembourg Future Fund (LFF) and the European Investment Fund (EIF) are anchor investors in the new MGV fund, whilst other investors include institutional, strategic and family offices. The fund remains open to additional institutional and private investors ahead of a final close later in 2020.
FinTech investment veteran Pascal Bouvier is co-founder of MGV along with Michael Meyer and Patrick Pinschmidt. Bouvier says: “We are pleased to have new capital from substantial investors to support great, transformational businesses across Europe and the US with our highly focused fund. Our investors agree that specialist funds with experience working with entrepreneurs, incumbent financial institutions and regulators are best placed to thrive in an environment characterised by financial and technological cross-currents and significant regulatory constraints. We are excited to put our platform to work on behalf of investors and the next wave of innovators solving hard problems and re-architecting the industry.”
Patrick Nickels, chairperson of the Luxembourg Future Fund Board of Directors, adds: “We are pleased to be an investor of MiddleGame Ventures fund aiming to support early stage FinTech companies. The Luxembourg Future Fund believes this commitment will help to strengthen the FinTech industry in Europe and generate positive spillovers in Luxembourg. This is a strategic sector for Luxembourg for economic diversification and we are delighted to contribute to its continuing development.”
“We are delighted to be supporting MiddleGame Ventures as an anchor investor in its new fund,” says the EIF’s chief executive Pier Luigi Gilibert. “The EIF has a strong commitment to innovation in Europe, and we hope that this fund, with its focus on FinTech entrepreneurs, will assist us in that goal.”
