Gideon Valkin – formerly of Monzo, ClearScore and Entree Capital – has launched Andrena Ventures, a $12 million solo GP fund aimed at backing European fintechs at Pre-Seed and Seed.
The first investment from this fund will be into Nustom, an AI startup founded by Monzo’s co-founding CTO. The new firm is backed by Midas List investors and founders of giants Wise and Teleport.
Andrena will back on subsidiaries of successful companies that have been spun out by ex-employees, as Valkin wants to ‘capitalise on the spinoff flywheel being seen across Europe’. The most famous example of a unicorn that gave rise to others is Paypal, whose employees went on to found YouTube, Tesla, LinkedIn and Palantir. According to Dealroom data, there are 10 fintech unicorns in Europe that have spun out 145 new startups which have raised around $5bn.
Andrena’s fund has reached its first close with a final close planned for later in the year.
“Europe’s time has arrived,” says Valkin. “A new power network of founding teams has emerged out of Europe’s first generation of industry-defining companies. These teams are using their lessons and experiences to solve tomorrow’s most pressing and important problems across fintech, AI, climate-tech and enterprise software. They deserve investors who understand these problems, believe in their ambitious vision and have the knowledge and know-how to truly support them.”
The debut fund is backed by global tech leaders including former employer, Entrée Capital; RTP Global; Taavet+Sten (co-founders of Wise and Teleport respectively); Cherry Ventures Managing Partners, Filip Dames, Christian Meerman, Sophia Bendz; David Haber, Fintech GP at Andreessen Horowitz; Firat Ileri, Managing Partner at Hummingbird Ventures etc. including at least seven VC investors who have featured on the Forbes Midas List.
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