BlackFin holds €180m final close for tech fund

The vehicle, BlackFin's first VC fund, was launched in June 2016 and held a first close in July 2017.

Founded by four financial technology entrepreneurs in 2009 – Laurent Bouyoux, Paul Mizrahi, Eric May and Bruno Rostain –BlackFin is a sector-focused investor, specialising in financial services across Europe.

The GP raised a first buyout fund of €220m in 2011, and a second of €400m in 2016.

Investors
Investors that made commitments before the first close included MACIF, BNP Paribas, BPI France and KfW Bank, as well as insurance companies Vaudoise Assurances, Groupama, Sogecap, Natixis Assurances, Swiss Life and Securex. Large family offices and regional entities of banking groups Crédit Agricole, Banque Populaire et Caisse d'Epargne also committed.

Investments
BlackFin Tech Fund 1 will be deployed across European financial, insurance and regulation technology companies, addressing the needs of large financial institutions (B2B), small businesses (B2SmallB) and consumers (B2C).

This will include retail and investment banking, payments, wealth and asset management, insurance, insurance distribution and financial software, as well as technology related to regulatory requirements.

Europe constitutes BlackFin Tech's core market, with France, Germany, the Benelux region and Switzerland making up the bulk of opportunities investigated so far, but with the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Nordic countries close behind.

Providing backing from seed stage to series-C rounds, tickets will be ranging from €2-7m, which can be raised to €15m at a later stage, depending on the company's progress.

BlackFin Tech 1 led the €15m series-A in Dutch company Friss, a fraud detection specialist for insurance companies. Its main fraud feature, the Friss Score, leverages artificial intelligence technologies (machine learning) and big data analysis to assess risk levels when underwriting new policies and managing claims.

People
BlackFin Capital Partners – Laurent Bouyoux (managing partner); Julien Creuzé (investment director); Maxime Mandin (investment manager).

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