On Tuesday night native time, Motier Ventures, an early stage tech funding agency based mostly in Paris, unveiled a startup hub known as La Maison. This comparatively new investor within the French tech ecosystem is the household workplace of the Houzé household — the homeowners of upmarket style retailer the Galeries Lafayette Group.
Because the Galeries Lafayette malls’ most important property are its bodily retail shops additionally they consider a bodily area for startups will give them an edge over different tech funding corporations.
Early stage startup founders based mostly in Paris have extra choices than ever on the subject of elevating a seed spherical. Many unicorn founders have turn out to be angel traders on the facet. Household workplaces have diversified their funding methods with a renewed urge for food for tech startups. And early stage VC corporations are nonetheless preventing for the perfect offers.
Probably the most promising startups get to decide on who they need on their capitalization desk. Some traders like to vow introductions with potential purchasers and enterprise companions. Others pledge a speedy, no frills monetary transaction in order that entrepreneurs can get again to work on their startup.
Motier Ventures is betting on an ecosystem-first strategy. Over the previous three years, the fund has deployed capital at a fast tempo as it’s now an investor in 85 corporations, together with many promising AI corporations — equivalent to Dust, H and Mistral.
They’ve additionally organized a number of events which have put many founders and traders within the French tech ecosystem into the identical room. The subsequent step in that technique is a bodily area, known as La Maison (a phrase which interprets as home or dwelling).
Unfold throughout the highest three flooring of the Lafayette Connoisseur constructing subsequent to the Opéra Garnier, La Maison will host a dozen early stage startups on this Haussmannian constructing. It can open in early 2025.
The fourth ground will probably be a bit completely different as it would act as an occasion/demo day/hackathon/cocktail reception area. “It’s a giant undertaking, and I believe what drives us isn’t just Motier Ventures, however the entire entrepreneurial and household ecosystem that we’ve represented for 5 generations,” Motier Ventures associate Guillaume Houzé stated throughout an AI-focused occasion in Paris organized by Motier.
“With Galeries Lafayette, we’re finally attempting to help those that make the best manufacturers,” he added, saying the fund’s aim for La Maison is to help “distinctive groups” by offering not only a work and assembly place but in addition inspiration for creativity — or “an area to mirror collectively on the imaginative and prescient of society we wish to construct”, as he put it.
In some ways, the pitch for La Maison is harking back to the early days of native tech hub The Household. Round 10 years go, The Household opened as a startup accelerator with an attractive occasion area that shortly turned the city sq. of the French tech ecosystem.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, The Household had no selection however to close down the area to chop prices. Extra lately, it’s been again within the information for all the wrong reasons as Oussama Ammar, considered one of The Household’s co-founder, is being sued for allegedly diverting thousands and thousands of euros.
For individuals who have been working within the French tech ecosystem for various years, The Household’s meetups and dinners at the moment are only a distant reminiscence. And nothing has actually stepped in to exchange it. Whereas Station F is an impressive startup megacampus, it’s too massive for informal and casual occasions. Perhaps La Maison will turn out to be the brand new default area to host small meetups.
“Our ambition is to domesticate an setting the place the subsequent technology of tech entrepreneurs, in AI and past, can really feel supported, impressed, and linked each day,” Motier Ventures associate Nicolas Essayan stated in an announcement.
