There’s a new VC fund in town — at least if you live in Paris. Meet a new $150 million (€150 million) fund, 100% backed by Otium Capital.
You are probably familiar with Otium Capital. It is the family office of Pierre-Edouard Sterin. In the year In 2003, Sterin founded the SmartBox Group, the company behind many popular gift boxes. Today he still owns the Smartbox Group and has a lot of money.
With Otium Capital, the family office has a broad investment strategy, from buyouts to real estate – and has made quite a few startup investments over the years.
Some past investments include PayFit and Owkin. But part of the venture group at Otium left in 2019 to create their own fund – Frst.
Resonance will be Otium Capital’s tech-focused VC fund going forward. Maxime Le Dantec and Alban Oudin oversee the fund’s day-to-day operations.
Le Dantec was previously a principal at Balderton Capital and worked on deals with GitGuardian, Kili Technology, Numeral and Request. As for Odin, he was a principal at XAnge and is involved in investing in Animage, Virtuosa, Kaju, Silver, Join Stories and Workflow.
Resonance focuses on seed and series A investments ranging from €100,000 to €10 million. Although the group is based in Paris, Resonance plans to invest throughout Europe.
The group insists it doesn’t want to spray and pray. Instead, it focuses on a few investments per year to ensure the right level of support for a variety of topics, such as key hires and future fundraising efforts.
This is the main advantage of having a single fan. If there are some macroeconomic issues, you don’t have to deploy a lot of capital every year because your limited partners have defined a short life cycle for your VC fund.
Resonance is not focused on a specific technology vertical. Based on the team’s background, it can invest in anything from enterprise software to fintech, web3, consumer and software-as-a-service products for SMBs.
