InReach Ventures, the AI-powered Venture Capital firm, today announced the first closing of a new fund of €53m, targeted at early stage European technology companies. This first closing surpassed the original fund target of €50m.
InReach Ventures is pioneering the use of software and Artificial Intelligence to discover, evaluate and support investments in the most promising early stage European start-ups. Like the tech disruptors it is looking to finance, the firm has a strong technology background. It has invested over €3m in the development of its own proprietary technology over the last three years, and over half the team are software engineers.
The firm’s mission is to uncover and fund game-changing tech start-ups from all over Europe, without geographic boundaries. Its proprietary software-based approach, underpinned by machine learning, generates and evaluates deal-flow significantly more efficiently than traditional venture firms.
Through the firm’s software stack, the InReach team is uniquely positioned to discover and analyse thousands of new opportunities each month, helping it to unleash technology entrepreneurship emanating from any corner of Europe. The firm’s objective is not to automate the actual decision making process for investing in startups, but to use technology to make this process far more scalable, efficient and informed.
Roberto Bonanzinga, investment partner at InReach Ventures said, “We are very excited by the opportunity for European technology entrepreneurship. However, if we look at the biggest tech companies in the world today by market capitalisation, European companies are significantly underrepresented.
“We need to adopt an approach which is tailored for Europe, or we will continue to fall behind. Entrepreneurs can found companies anywhere in Europe, from Helsinki to Barcelona, from Warsaw to Rome, and yet many fail to get noticed at the right time. As European venture capitalists, we need a new approach that is distinct and tailored to deal with this geographic fragmentation and economic reality. We believe the only way to achieve this is through a software-based approach, powered by AI.”
Since inception in 2015, InReach has already invested in eight start-ups from across Europe, including: Oberlo (Lithuania) subsequently acquired by Shopify, Soldo (Italy/UK), Tutorful (UK), Shapr3D (Hungary), Traitly (Sweden) and Loots (Germany).
The firm was founded by, Roberto Bonanzinga, former General Partner at Balderton Capital/Benchmark Europe, Ben Smith, former UK Engineering Director at Yammer (Microsoft) and CTO at various technology start-ups John Mesrie, former General Counsel at Balderton Capital/Benchmark Europe.
The trio’s unique blend of experience from high-powered VC and tech firms enables them to provide technological, operational, and strategic guidance and support to startup founders.
Bonanzinga said, “When we started InReach, people didn’t believe that AI could be applied to venture capital. We are here to prove them wrong.
“With this new fund closing, we are now leading the way in European VC innovation and we aim to help entrepreneurs across Europe innovate and disrupt as many industries as possible. And because we develop proprietary technology ourselves, we understand deeply the way tech companies work, how they can grow to meet the demands of their market, and how they can scale up to reach their full potential.”
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