Swiss VC fund Founderful nears 70 per cent capacity with $85M raised

Founderful, a Swiss VC fund formerly known as Wingman Ventures, has announced that its newest fund, targeted at $120 million has reached 70 per cent capacity at $85 million.

Now five years in vintage, Wingman Ventures is the brainchild of Swiss unicorn GetYourGuide co-founder Pascal Mathis, former Switzerland Lead at Creathor Ventures Alex Stöckl, and EAT.ch co-founder Lukas Weder. 

The fund specialises in providing pre-seed startups with both the necessary capital and industry know-how to get things off the drawing board and into actuality.

The firm has deployed approximately $60 million into some 40 startups. To put this number into perspective, of these 40+ startups, 109 founders have gone on to be responsible for the creation of just over 1,000 jobs and raise nearly 6x in additional funding to the tune of $350 million.

The firms’ second fund, again, targeted at double the first vintage, will continue to press Founderful’s ethos of founding pre-seed startups, delivering practical, operational experience in tandem.

According to the frim, Founderful’s second fund is backed by several institutional investors and family offices, as well as unicorn founders from Duolingo, Climeworks, GetYourGuide, Delivery Hero, and Scandit.

Founderful founding partner Alex Stöckl shared:

“We’re beyond grateful that we get to continue our work with the most ambitious founder teams of this exciting ecosystem. Switzerland is one of the world’s fastest-growing venture capital markets. With the global shift towards more complex technologies solving some of our society’s most pressing challenges, it will become one of the world’s most important tech hubs. 

“With our founder-operator backgrounds and the deeply rooted access we’ve built over the years into the universities and research institutions with our Founderful Campus program, we’ve become the go-to firm for entrepreneurs and investors alike.”

Lead image: The Founderful team. Photo: Daniel Kunz