Revaia closes debut fund on EUR 250m

Revaia Fund I held a first close in summer 2019 and had raised EUR 100m as of October that year, according to Unquote Data. The final close came in July 2021.

Revaia changed its name to evoke its ethos to "reveal a better future", including an emphasis on sustainability within the European technology ecosystem, according to a statement.

"We have two strong convictions at the heart of our strategy," Revaia co-founder Elina Berrebi told Unquote. "One: you should not compromise between big growth ambitions and a view to tackle societal and environmental issues through your business model; Two: as the European tech ecosystem matures, we need more capital to connect companies to public markets, since some will IPO, and we have partnered with Sycomore as part of this."

The partnership has seen Sycomore Asset Management take a minority stake in Revaia, as well as joining the fund's LP base. "As well as acting as a sponsor for the fund launch and an LP, we have a daily relationship and partnership with Sycomore, nurturing dialogue between our portfolio company founders and Sycomore's portfolio managers, who look at IPO candidates," Berrebi said. "This is of high value for European founders."

The GP has been able to deploy its debut fund steadily and is now turning its sights to its next fund, Berrebi said. "More than half of Fund I is already deployed. If we keep investing at this pace, we may finalise investing the fund in 2022 – so we will start thinking about Fund II at that stage."

Revaia's second fund is likely to be larger than its debut fund, in line with the growth of the European technology ecosystem, Berrebi said. "We will aim for the fund to be bigger, in line with the growth of the market. It's about being able to keep up with how the market evolves, being able to support the companies and invest in multiple rounds."

Revaia was founded in 2018 by Elina Berrebi and Alice Albizzati, both of whom have previous experience at FSI France. Prior to forming Revaia, Berrebi worked at Eurazeo, where she was part of the firm's late-stage venture and growth equity strategy, supporting investments in companies including Farfetch and ContentSquare. Albizzati held prior roles including at Verlinvest in the US; the firm's investments include oat milk producer Oatly, which it first backed in 2016.

The firm is headquartered in Paris and opened an office in Berlin in 2021, with Robin Haak joining the team as a partner. Revaia has a team of 15 people and intends to make new hires in its investment and operations divisions. "In addition to Paris and Berlin, we are looking at the other big tech hubs in Europe," Berrebi said. "We are thinking about the Nordic countries, but it's a matter of who we meet and who comes across us, so we are open in terms of geographies. We will be recruiting partners, venture partners and principals."

Investors
Around 10 European institutional investors provided 85% of the fund's capital, according to Berrebi. The remainder of its capital is from more than 50 family offices and entrepreneurs.

Institutional LPs in the fund include Generali, Allianz and Maif, as well as BPI France and several pension funds, according to a statement.

Investments
Revaia backs Europe-based technology scale-ups, deploying equity tickets of EUR 10m-30m across Series B to pre-IPO rounds. In addition, the fund can deploy tickets of EUR 1m available for post-IPO capital. The GP can make larger post-IPO investments in partnership with Sycomore Asset Management.

The vehicle expects to make 15 platform investments in total. It has made 10 investments so far, with two more due to be announced shortly.

The fund's current portfolio includes Aircall, a call centre software platform that raised USD 120m in a round led by Goldman Sachs at a valuation of more than USD 1bn in June 2021. Other recent investments include UK-based children's financial platform GoHenry; the GP backed a USD 40m round for the business in December 2020.

The firm anticipates several portfolio exits via IPOs in the coming years, Berrebi told Unquote. "Aircall has reached unicorn status and I expect there will be an IPO in two to three years' time. I expect that more of our companies will go down that route, and some are already thinking about it."

However, IPOs are not the only exit route envisaged for the firm's portfolio companies, according to Berrebi. "We try to make sure that our companies have multiple options. For those that are ambitious and have a business model that is understood by the public market, it is a good route. But we know that it's a minority of the market that exits to an IPO. We are lucky to have the platform to support companies that are complex and we can support strategic exits or SBOs."

People
Revaia Capital – Elina Berrebi, Alice Albizzati (co-founders).

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