Elaia rolls out €77-million fund to back deeptech startups across Europe

French VC firm Elaia has rolled out a €77-million deeptech fund in partnership with France’s National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria).

Elaia Alpha II Fund will back 30 to 40 pre-seed and seed startups across Europe, with majority of its investments being based in its home turf, France. The sectors on the radar include AI, data science and digital health, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, enterprise software, industrial IoT and embedded hardware systems.

With a ticket size of €200,000 to €2 million, the newly launched fund has already invested in 14 startups, including local e-commerce startup Kheops, cardiac imaging company inHeart and health tech i-Virtual.

Leading investors that participated in the fund are VINCI Concessions, Inria, Bpifrance for the Fonds National d’Amorçage 2 (FNA 2), Covéa Finance, BNP Paribas, L’Oréal and Malakoff Humanis.

Anne-Sophie Carrese, partner at Elaia said: “This new deep tech seed fund, together with PSL Innovation Fund, gives us fire power of €153 million to invest in technological startups close to research. We now have 33 startups in the deep tech seed portfolio, and see success reaching go to market, refinancing and international development.”