Descendants, fears of recession, mass layoffs, a stock accident, a collapse of cryptography. Things are a little different for the technology industry. The Austrian investor of the 3VC scale founded by Roman Scharf and Peter Lassinger recently abandoned good news: 3VC will launch its second fund after the first fund of 2018 (around 50 million euros). The first agreements will be announced soon, and there will be releases from the first fund in the next two or three years.
This time the The objective is 150 million eurosAfter the first fence, there are already more than 50 million euros in the pot. It will not be officially revealed who are the limited partners who provide money, but they should be relatively in accordance with those of the first fund – and there were Sparkasse Oberösterreich, Raiffeisen, Vienna Insurance Group, Dietrich Mateschitz via Red Bull or Hans Peter Haselsteiner with them.
3VC will remain with the current model and will make 3 to 4 investments in the European scales (Focus on Dach and Eastern Europe), in the A series. The new partners of the fund are Eva Arh, the first employee of 3VC (then still capital300), and the co-founder of Dynatrace, Sok-Kheng Ting, who already headed the investment committee of the first fund. They want to invest in unions, that is to say with co-investors, in startups. To focus: software exclusively.
The fund will support companies that solve massive problems through software and Web infrastructure3Whatever the industry or the business model (B2B, B2C). The average size of the fund tickets is $ 5 million, while the range is $ 10 million.
Eva Arh: “He does not deliberately do any Fomo rounds”
“The market environment is of course very exciting, but it offers as many opportunities as problems,Said SCHARF in an interview for trendy subjects. “We deliberately did not do the Fomo rounds last year”, “ Addes Eva Arh. “”We continue to be very selective. »» The companies in the first fund would still be on the market and are developing healthy. 75% of the portfolio ladders would already be over 100 million euros. The strategy can be called “Investment of conviction” – Each portfolio company can and must contribute to the result. “This is not the only company that makes the return of the fund, but several companies that work very well,Said Arh.
SCHARF novel: “The years of infinite boom are unrealistic”
When they were asked for slowdowns and mass dismissals on the start-up and scale market, which currently afflicts the industry due to recession fears, SCHARF says: After the record year of 2021, there is now one “Healthy recalibration“Follow” absurd evaluations “. “We stayed outside this in 3VC,“Said the experienced investor. “If your shoes are too large, it is difficult to walk, and if you trip, nobody will catch you. The same VCs who pay the highest notes are those that do not help when there is a problem. »»
And further: “The cooling is good for the industry. I don’t even want to invest in founders who want the highest note. You do not hire the most expensive or cheapest seller, you hire the best, “ said SCHARF. “There will be decreases, there will be suints. The unicorns will disappear and there will be new unicorns. The expectation that there will be endless years of boom is unrealistic.“It’s like that in an ecosystem – Former players are replaced by newAn endless cycle.
Why are unicorns now confronted at more difficult times after beaten 2021 media
Eva Arh: “It’s about having a track now”
The slowdown has been noticeable for several months with a fall in evaluations and recently with mass layoffs in technological companies. “We will see less of these towers where multiple 200x are paid on sales. “Healthy growth” is worth more than “growth at all costs”, “ said ARH. “”It becomes more difficult when you have an average team with an average product. And the advice for the founders is that it is now a question of having a track so that you do not have to increase next year. »»
SCHARF denies that a portfolio company has already been caught off guard. The dismissal of approximately 90 employees (approximately 8%) on the Picsart photo application would have other reasons. SCHARF: “Picsart is more on the preparation of the IPOs. They had four or five years of growth and decided to make the reference adjustments that the stock market wishes. »»