Felix closes maiden fund on $120m hard-cap

The new firm, led by former Advent Venture Partners general partner Frederic Court, held a first close for the vehicle on €92m in February 2015. It stated the fundraising was oversubscribed. 

“Most of the fundraising took place between September and December last year,” Court told unquote". “That is when LPs started to undertake due diligence. We had received most of the commitments by December and received our FCA approval in February.”

The majority of the VC’s team comprises professionals that previously worked in Advent’s technology division, following Advent’s decision to focus exclusively on investments in life sciences.

Felix Capital Fund I will receive strategic support from a group of 11 entrepreneurs. These include David Marcus, who founded mobile payments platform Zong and is now vice president of messaging products at Facebook; Reggie Bradford, who founded social marketing brand Vitrue and is now senior vice president of product development at Oracle; and Christophe Maire, who founded e-reader company Txtr and currently has a seat on the board at Soundcloud.

“I wanted this new firm to be very entrepreneur-centric,” said Court. “It was important for us to have entrepreneurs as part of the vehicle. They have agreed to spend some time with us in terms of deal sourcing, mentoring new entrepreneurs, and also boosting our network and reach from Silicon Valley, to Europe, to Hong Kong.”

Investors
Commitments to Felix Capital Fund I were primarily provided by European LPs, although Felix stated it also received significant commitments from the US. The investor base includes university endowments, funds-of-funds, pension funds, family offices and the aforementioned group of entrepreneurs, in addition to strategic backers Unilever Ventures and Galeries Lafayette.

Felix did not use a placement agent in the fundraising, but stated it received significant support from other venture capital houses, which provided introductions to various LPs. “I do not think there are many placement agents who would take on a first-time European venture fund because that market, to date, has been just too difficult," said Court. "The fund would not have been possible without support from friends and peers at other funds including Index, Accel, 83North – to name just a handful.”

Investments
Felix will focus on early-stage investments of $2-5m in e-commerce, digital media and lifestyle-related digital services, although due to the flexibility of its structure it will be able to write cheques of $100k-10m. 

The VC will primarily invest in European assets, although it remains open to the possibility of investing in US businesses. It will seek to back companies with potential for international expansion.

Felix Capital Fund I will target businesses similar to those already invested in by its founder. Court has previously worked on investments including online fashion marketplace Farfetch, mobile payments business Zong (acquired by eBay in a $240m deal in 2011), social media marketing company Vitrue and online video platform Dailymotion. 

“Europe has fantastic heritage in the creative industries,including fashion, beauty, luxury, travel and music, for example," said Court. "It has great brands and fantastic talent. When you connect that talent to digital platforms you can create some very interesting success stories; from Asos to Spotify or Soundcloud. This meeting of the creative industries and technology is where we are looking to invest.”

The vehicle has already made investments in Farfetch, which most recently raised a $86m round in March 2015; fashion media company Business of Fashion; and online streetwear brand Rad.

People
Frederic Court is managing partner at Felix. The founding team also includes finance partner Les Gabb, formerly finance partner at Advent; principal Antoine Nussenbaum, formerly partner at Atlas Global; and operations manager Phylia Phoon, formerly tech team assistant at Advent. The firm has also identified a principal and associate, who are expected to be added to the team following the closing of the fund.

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