IRIS raises a new €150m early-stage fund and appoints Denis Duverne as Senior Advisor

With a 30+ years legacy, IRIS has clearly been around for longer than most tech companies (even longer than the public version of Internet). Back to our beginnings, we were investing in entrepreneurs who were disrupting their industries: telecom, media, entertainment, services… Then everything became tech and as investment pioneers we started supporting start-ups and scale-ups across the world, with our solid French and German DNA developed since the 1990’s.

Now we invest in pure tech, in the next game changers in multiple industries, from seed to series A, from late stage to growth, in France, Germany and Europe.

And this year, not only have we started a new chapter with new additions to the team and a brand-new identity, but we’re proud to announce the first closing of our new €150m early-stage fund, yet our 4th venture fund!

From purple IRIS went green but kept on looking forward for what’s next and to make our actions count. With the support of entrepreneurs we’ve previously funded and Business angels alongside our historical investors and new international suscribers, we’re building a fund that will continue supporting the best founders who disrupt their markets, now and for long.??

For many, the future starts tomorrow. For us, it starts with you.

This new IRIS Venture IV fund is dedicated to Seed and Series A investments in France, Germany and DACH region that will lead tomorrow’s innovations. We’re backed by our historical investors including Orange , 阳狮广告 and Bpifrance as well as newcomers amongst which several European family offices, tech entrepreneurs and portfolio founders including Fred POTTER , founder of Netatmo , Yannis Yahiaoui , cofounder of Adot , Amirhossein Malekzadeh , cofounder of Logmatic.io , Grégoire Delpit , cofounder of ProcessOut , Patrick Asdaghi , founder of FoodChéri SAS or yet Adrien Nussenbaum , cofounder of Mirakl who trust our expertise, experience and network and expertise to detect and support the next leading techs.

“With this new Seed and Early-stage fund we intend to pursue our successful journey of selecting, backing, and scaling differentiated tech platforms developed by out of the ordinary founders who know their market well. To do so, we have structured a new team of investors bearing our selective DNA and methods. After ambitious tech companies like Netatmo , Shift Technology , SAP LeanIX , Staffbase , Exotec , Virtuo , Yubo , SurePay or Talon.One , we look forward to supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs in software, fintech, AI, logistics and robotics, and the next wave of tech innovations,” says Julien-David Nitlech , Managing Partners at IRIS .

The new fund is already active, with several lead investments in European scale-ups: Spinergie in France, Helu.io in Austria and two more to be announce in Q1 2023.

We know good tech when we see it and this new fund allows us to dedicate tickets from €1m to €8m to the next global leaders born in France, Germany and across Europe. We designed our investment thesis to support our entrepreneurs every step of this incredible, yet long, journey. We fund history in the making, bridging the gap between a unique vision and a lasting global reality to be trustworthy in challenging times such as ours.

To back the best visionaries, we are a team of experts in early-stage, late-stage, growth and companies’ support based in Paris, Berlin and Munich. The IRIS team also welcomes Denis Duverne , former Chairman of the Board of AXA, as Senior Advisor and Chairman of IRIS Supervisory board, a position previously held by friend Maurice Levy, Chairman of the Supervisory board of 阳狮广告 .

If you are ahead of your time, you are right on time.

In the past years, we’ve had the chance to finance and support entrepreneurs and teams who became together global tech leaders in SaaS, AI, logistics, FinTech, InsurTech, Enterprise software. We’re proud to raise another fund that will allow a new generation of founders to become the next growth examples like Netatmo, Exotec, Shift, Lookout , Forto , Kyriba , Zeta Global , SAP LeanIX , Jedox , Virtuo , Yubo and many more.

We fund history in the making, bridging the gap between your vision and a lasting global reality.

Because stories are better told by those who lived them, here are a few words from our entrepreneurs:

Jean-Luc Robert , CEO of Kyriba: "We were founded in 2004 in France as a unique treasury management Saas before evolving to a platform. When we searched for a new investor who understood the value of emerging cloud and what it could do for tech, marketing and organization IRIS clearly appeared to be the right expert partner.”

André Christ , CEO of LeanIX: “Since 2015 and IRIS’ investment, we’ve increased our revenue by 150x and we grew from 2 employees to now more than 450. Our relationship with IRIS is based on a common passion for ambitious and efficient tech and we’re happy to count them as a strong support across Europe”

Romain Moulin , CEO of Exotec: “We would go again with IRIS for three reasons: one, they’re smart people who understand very well what we do, and IRIS was among the investors that understood the best our business model. Second, that they are long sighted, they’re here to build great stories and we can really discuss about long term strategy with them. And third I would say that they share love, true love for their entrepreneurs: it’s not only business but also about relationship, and it’s really nice to work with IRIS.”

A warm thank you to all of you for your trust and support, we can’t wait to see what’s next?together!

Julien-David Nitlech , Curt Gunsenheimer , Erik de la Rivière and the IRIS team