360 Capital holds EUR 45m first close on early stage tech fund

Square II will deploy around 70% of its capital in France, in contrast to the GP's other seed fund, Poli360, which deploys mostly in Italy. The remainder will be invested elsewhere in southern Europe.

360 was preparing to launch Square II in late 2020 following the full deployment of its 2015 vintage predecessor, Square I.

The fund had a target size of EUR 50m at the time. 360 Capital has not yet decided whether it will return to LPs for a final close, general partner Emanuele Levi told Unquote. 

"The market is evolving quite rapidly and we have not decided whether the fund has the ambition of EUR 60m-EUR 70m," he added. "Seed rounds have gone up quite dramatically and we have some early mark of interest so the next few months will be interesting." 

The fund will invest in pre-seed and seed rounds with ticket sizes of EUR 200k-EUR 2m. 

Investors
The fund is still open to new contributions from LPs, said Levi. 

Already committed investors include the “Fonds National d’Amorçage 2” (French Tech Seed 2), managed on behalf of the French State by Bpifrance, MAIF Avenir, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, Groupe Rocher, and several European business angels, said 360 in a statement. 

Investments
Across all its strategies, 360 Capital focuses on three core sectors: B2B automation, consumer tech and deeptech, which will continue into Square II. 

Automation investments focus on both hardware and software. Exotec, a newly-minted unicorn working in warehouse picking, sits within this segment and has been one of Square I's most successful investments, said Levi. 

Within consumer tech, 360 is interested in mass consumer disruption that change the way customers use a service. 

Deeptech investments need to have a strong IP proponent and the fund has invested widely in sensors, space tech and quantum computing. 

The French ecosystem is particularly strong in deeptech and B2B automation, Levi said.

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