CapitalT holds first close for debut fund

CapitalT is headed by co-founders Janneke Niessen and Eva de Mol, who both have a background in entrepreneurship and technology.

The firm began fundraising in March 2019 and is targeting a final close in 2020. The fund has a hard-cap of €60m.

The GP did not use a placement agent. Zuidbroek provided legal advice. The fund will follow market standard terms and conditions, and will have a 10-year lifecycle with a five-year investment period.

Asked about the fundraise, co-founder Janneke Niessen told Unquote: "Raising a fund as a first-time fund is not easy – but it shouldn't be too easy, it's a huge commitment to investors and the companies you invest in. It's good that there is a strong process. We have a different approach through our model, so investors are really interested – they like the fact that we are focused on teams and we have a data-driven model for that, since they recognise the importance of teams; they know how this can make a positive or negative difference."

The firm's data-driven approach comprises an analysis of the dynamics of startup teams, based on research undertaken by de Mol during her PhD at VU University and University of California - Berkeley Haas Business School. Niessen told Unquote that each core team member of a startup is invited to take a survey that is based on more than 80,000 observations across more than 1,000 companies in five years. Factors that the analysis focuses on include personality traits, human capital and team dynamics.

Investors
The fund currently has 18 LPs and anticipates adding a further 10-15 by the final close, Niessen told Unquote. The fund has a minimum commitment of €500,000 and the LP base currently consists of entrepreneurs and family offices, including the founders of TomTom, Booking and Adyen. It also has several US investors.

For the final close, the vehicle aims to secure commitments from banks, funds and regional development funds backed by the Dutch government.

The fund will target a 4-5x money return for investors, said Niessen.

Investments
The vehicle will deploy equity tickets of €250,000-3m and aims to invest in 20-25 businesses at the seed stage. A quarter of the fund will be held back for follow-on investments. It will generally provide equity investments but will provide convertible loans for smaller tickets, Niessen told Unquote.

The fund will target technology-based companies in Northern Europe and the UK. It has deals in its pipeline and has already made two investments: Netherlands-headquartered WizeNoze, which filters and assigns reading levels to internet-based resources for use in education and study; and pre-hiring assessment software business TestGorilla, a company that provides businesses with resources to test the skills of potential job candidates.

Click here for an in-depth profile on CapitalT

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