Welcome to our 102nd newsletter. It was written with 💛 by Saish Rane, Medina Sinani and Angèle Sahraoui
Fundraisings from last week with Topi and Planted
News from last week with ISAI, Snap and Zenly
Our content of the week with a podcast episode about Caudalie
A list of some cool events taking place in September
The latest episode of “Dans la tête d’un CEO”
Internship & Job offers of the week
🥓 Swiss-based startup Planted raised $72M with L Catterton
Planted focuses on revolutionizing the food industry by producing vegan alternatives to meat. Among the cool products the team has been working on: their famous vegan chicken breast, kebab meat and even breaded schnitzel. 🤤
With this Series B, Planted plans to launch its own product line, boost its production capacity and expand internationally. The long-term goal? Helping us to reduce global meat consumption, and protecting the environment and our health by offering products that neither contain additives, chemicals, gluten, soy, GMOs nor antibiotics or hormones. 🩺
Oh, and on a fun note: their production facility based in Kemptthal, Switzerland was built out of glass… thus creating the “first transparent meat production open to the public”. 💡
Planted gets $72M to put whole cuts of vegan chicken on Europe’s menu
💻 Berlin-based startup Topi raised $45M with Creandum and Index
Topi offers electronic dealers a platform through which they can offer their products for rent so that companies can get access to new computers, smartphones or printers – without having to pay large upfront costs. The rental contracts run for between 12 and 36 months after which customers can decide whether they want to buy the products, exchange them for new ones or return them. 🤝
And as Topi helps companies to keep some cash in the bank, the startup seems well-positioned to be one of those very few that might be positively impacted by the current macroeconomic context. 🧐
Topi raises $45M to power hardware subscriptions for B2B merchants
💵 ISAI launches a €40M Growth Lending Fund
ISAI, the French VC fund founded in 2009 by 4 former entrepreneurs and now managed by Jean-David Chamboredon, Christophe Raynaud and Pierre Martini, announced last week that it had raised a €40M Growth Lending (or “Venture Debt”) Fund that will target growth-stage startups — i.e startups that have found their business model, already generate a few millions of revenues and which are rapidly scaling. 🤝
The main advantage of borrowing Venture Debt compared to following the traditional VC route being that it enables startups to get access to a consequent amount of cash while limiting the amount of shareholder dilution (esp. in a context in which valuations have been decreasing). 😁
Let’s also note that ISAI welcomed two new General Partners on this occasion with Pierre Cousin & Sébastien Ritter, and that the fundraising was a first closing. The team will now target a €80M final one. 📈
Congrats to ISAI! 🚀
👻 Snap Inc. lays off 20% of its workforce & shuts down Zenly
Snap CEO, Evan Spiegel announced on Wednesday that after having missed revenue growth & community growth targets for two quarters consecutively, he has taken the difficult decision to “restructure & refocus” the business by letting go of about 20% of the workforce among other measures. 😕
He added that this decision was necessary as the revenue growth of 8% last quarter compared to their spending (envisioned for 20-25% YoY growth) was clearly not enough and has now taken the choice to focus on revenue growth, community growth and augmented reality as strategic priorities. 🎯
Additionally, Zenly will shut down soon, months after a major redesign that also announced the departure of its co-founder & CEO Antoine Martin. 🙁
This decision comes as a shock not only to Zenly employees but also the ecosystem at large as the well-loved social app boasted 35M MAUs (Monthly Active Users) (source). In an SEC filing, Snap added that they will be “winding down” Zenly to “focus on Snap Map”.
In the meantime, Snap also released a Snap Alumni Talent Hub in an effort to connect people impacted by the layoffs with prospective employers. Don’t hesitate to spread the word if you have recruiting companies in mind. 💌
🍇 Grape seeds to spas and everything in between: Caudalie’s origins
If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d believe Caudalie is a 100 year old heritage cosmetics brand currently on its 3rd generation of custodians but surprisingly, it’s a first-generation, 27 year old young company! 👶🏼
Mathilde Thomas created this brand out of a project started in business school when no one believed her and her classmate then to become business partner & husband Bertrand. They wanted to fabricate antioxydant products made out of grapes but as they were students, no one took them seriously. 😕
They went on to meet Professor Vercauteren who was doing research on the powerful antioxydant properties of grape seeds and pioneered a method to stabilise the core ingredient that provided a high Vitamin E concentration. 📈
This research partnership alongside the accidental success of creating a spa in a vineyard and creating a grape treatment, Vinotherapy, led to having a worldwide phenomenon with all the world’s top media scurrying to catch the latest scoop of the latest wine therapy trend. 🚀
Going from these two pivotal moments to creating a lasting brand with 1,000+ employees, 50 boutiques and 16,000 partner pharmacies has neither been an easy task nor be done without sacrifice. Learn more about the story of Mathilde & Caudalie in this episode hosted by Matthieu Stefani on Génération Do It Yourself (in 🇫🇷).
🧠 (Online) Forging your convictions as an entrepreneur, 14/09
Founders: how do you convince yourself that your intuitions are right? This is the topic of this webinar, hosted by Pierre Gaubil (Repeat founder, SF-based, 1 IPO, 2 M&A), founder of the 34 Elements bootcamp. Come and ask Pierre your questions and determine your strategic priorities in the coming months. Register here. Limited to 10 participants.
♻️ (IRL, Berlin) Start Up Energy Transition Tech Festival, 20/09
An annual one-day event that brings together innovators shaping the future of energy. More info here!
🏫 (IRL, Paris) Hacking of the Hôtel de Ville, 21/09
Paris&Co and the City of Paris will invite you to the Hôtel de Ville for a large business event dedicated to help you meet your future partners among startups, investors, major corporations and institutions. Roundtables are also on the agenda. More info just here!
🚺 (IRL, Paris) Women in Venture Capital Summit: Europe, 26 & 27/09
Meet hundreds of GPs, LPs, founders and dreamers: eat, drink, mentor, inspire! Tickets and info available here.
🇫🇷 (IRL, Paris) French Digital Day, 28/09
On September 28th, France Digitale will be hosting France Digitale Day's 10th edition (#FDDay) in Paris at the Musée des Arts Forains. FDD is an event that gathers over 2,500 founders and investors from across France and Europe to discuss the latest trends in business, tech and society in a unique, village-like venue in the heart of the French capital.
Among the speakers that have already been announced, you’ll find: Blaise Matuidi (GP, Origins Fund), Axel Toupane (Player, Paris Basketball), Nicolas Cohen (CEO, Ankorstore), Darren Westlake (CEO, Crowdcube), Hiroki Takeuchi (CEO, GoCardless), and many (many) more.
👉 To learn more and take your ticket, it’s just here!
Yacine is back w/ the 4th season of his Dans la tête d’un CEO podcast (“In the Head of a CEO”). And for this first episode, he welcomed Mark Kepeneghian, CEO and founder of Kriptown, a startup building the Neo version of a Stock Exchange that specifically targets SMEs. 💰
Among the topics that Yacine and Mark discussed, you’ll find: how Mark accidentally turned into an entrepreneur, the role financial markets play in our society, fighting an imposter syndrome, his 1.35M€ fundraising and why startups sometimes lie about fundraising figures… Plus many more. 🚀
So, if you’re a French speaker (and listener!), go check it out!
Internships
VC Analyst - Earlybird (Paris)
VC Analyst - Starquest (Paris)
Full Time Jobs
Startup Program Manager - TomCat Factory (Paris)
Credit Analyst - Karmen (Paris)
👉 And if you’d like to discover more offers… you can check our job board just here!
Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at joinbabyvc@gmail.com. We’d be super happy to have you sharing job/internship offers, events or feedback with us! 🤝
You can also read about us on our website and follow what we do on LinkedIn.
Take care, and see you next week,
The whole baby vc crew 💛