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Global Founders Capital , the Berlin - based early - stage VC business firm with confining ties to the German startup factoryRocket Internet , is going to become the venture limb of Rocket Internet .
The VC previously advance two $ 1 billion funds and , just a few years ago , its name appeared in dozens of sight per class . But then , things quietened down . Now we know why : Going forward , it ’ll exclusively invest from Rocket Internet ’s balance sheet .
Last yearFinancial Timesreported that Global Founders Capital was in the eye of a big strategic break . A couple of weeks ago the VC firm reached out to TechCrunch to reassert the pivot man and discuss the reasons behind the shift .
“ To be transparent , there have been quite a few changes at Global Founders Capital in late years — in terms of the structure of the fund and the composition of the squad , ” Global Founders Capital Partner David Sainteff ( pictured above ) tell us .
Sainteff said the house decided it ’s not the correct time to raise another fund because it ’s not a with child time to induct as they do not trust there are that many good opportunities that cope with the firm ’s criteria and that they do n’t need more upper-case letter to remain competitive against other investors for good deal .
Global Founders Capital was originally structure as a traditional VC firm with several limited partners participate in investment firm . With its first stock , it indorse then - future unicorns such asPersonio , RevolutandSumUp . With its second fund , the firm commit in several companies TechCrunch has also covered , such asPennylane , AnkorstoreandSeyna .
Prior to joining Global Founders Capital , seven years ago , Sainteff turn for Rocket Internet , whichwas an investor in Global Founders Capital from the source . So there have been confining tie between them since the beginning .
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Frankly , this is a bit unpaired as the business firm ’s past performance seems quite good . concord to Sainteff , the first investment company is run low to generate payoff between 3x and 4x . “ For the second investment company , it ’s far too ahead of time [ to say ] , ” he keep . “ But we have a few clean winners like Pennylane . We entered at the pre - seed microscope stage and the company is worth over € 1 billion . ”
The new strategy means Global Founders Capital is now much modest than it used to be , with only five partners left : Fabricio Pettena , Don Stalter , Cedric Asselman , Sainteff and of course Rocket Internet cobalt - founder and CEO Oliver Samwer .
The newfangled version of the firm will also only focus on early - microscope stage investments , plus the ability for be - on investments in later rounds ( Series A , B , C , etc . ) .
Did Global Founders Capital take not to raise a third investment trust because it did n’t get enough bread and butter from possible limited partners or because of the current tech downswing compared to 2021 ( with the elision of the boom in contrived intelligence ) ? Probably the decision hinge on a bit of both .
“ It was n’t the good present moment to raise funds with [ limited partners ] , ” Sainteff told us . “ We believe it was unmanageable to have the imperative form to deploy capital . ”
“ It ’s an easy conclusion to make when you have € 300 million in the bank , ” he added . “ If other VC firm were in the same boat , they would have made the same decision . We do n’t rule out the possibility to raise a monetary fund when the condition are right and favorable . ”
For now , the pivot reverses much of the investment trust ’s earlier expansion , when it scaled into more geographics , technical school areas and financial support point and the Global Founders Capital name was attach to a gang of batch .
