Partech, Kurma to manage BPI-backed French university seed fund

A close has been held for the fund on €50m. The seed fund aims to encourage students', graduates' and researchers' entrepreneurial ideas and startups. An Open Innovation programme has been established alongside the fund to support their development. 

Partech and Kurma will manage the fund's investments, in the tech and life sciences sectors respectively. 

Paris-Saclay is a Parisian university group comprising 17 higher education institutions, including HEC, Polytechnique, CentraleSupalec, ENS Cachan, Institut Mines Telecom. The group also counts 10,000 researchers, 65,000 students, 360 laboratories and 10 incubators.

Investors
The fund has so far received commitments from BPI France via its seed-funding-focused Fonds national d'amorçage, BNP Paribas, Groupama and Societe Generale, as well as a number of large French corporate groups such as EDF, JCDecaux, Orange, RATP, Chanel, Cisco and Econocom.

The Paris-Saclay group itself will also contribute to the fundraise.

Investments
The fund will aim to support between 40-50 startups over the next three years, with investments primarily focused on the tech and life sciences sectors. Tech investments should make up around 70% of the fund, while life sciences funding will represent around 30%.

Partech and Kurma will take part in early-stage rounds of funding, with average tickets amounting to €600,000 for seed rounds and €2m for series-A rounds, with the maximum ticket fixed at €3m.

The first investments with the fund should be completed in the coming weeks, according to Paris-Saclay.

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