PFR Ventures has invested in two new venture capital funds
PFR Ventures has signed contracts with two new teams: Freya Capital and Tangent Line. They have received a total of PLN 110 million from the public investor. Their full capitalization amounts to more than PLN 145 million.
The new contracts were signed back in 2020. Negotiations were held remotely due to the sanitary regime and restrictions. Despite difficulties, the process was shorter than the average time from the quotation submission until signing the documents.
A year after the lockdown, our operations haven’t changed at all. We keep on investing in VC funds and manage the portfolio of already-existing teams. And later this year we will announce even more investments. But today we are proud to have two more local teams aboard. These are the so-called “first-time teams”, but the people who form them have already been experienced in investing in the Polish innovation ecosystem
says Maciej Ćwikiewicz, President of PFR Ventures.
Both teams have investment experience in the innovative enterprise sector. They differ in terms of the type of investment model and investment strategy. PFR Ventures has invested PLN 50 million in Freya Capital and almost PLN 60 million in Tangent Line. Additional PLN 37 million will be invested from private pockets. Both investment projects have been made with the use of monies originating from the Smart Growth Operational Programme which constitute a portion of the funds managed by PFR Ventures.
Freya Capital is a fund established by Hubert Anyżewski, Zbigniew Barwicz, Jan Grochowicz and Michał Lewandowski. The team intends to invest in companies from various sectors, such as MedTech, CleanTech, InsurTech & FinTech, Gaming and ICT. The fund capitalization amounts to PLN 63 million. Freya Capital is going to invest at pre-seed and seed stages and can allocate up to PLN 4 in a single investment.
Each of Freya Capital’s founders has experience building their own businesses and working on Polish and international business projects. We know and understand the market environment, so we know how to properly prepare the business for scaling and obtaining subsequent financing rounds”, said Zbigniew Barwicz, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Freya Capital. “Our long-term goal is to support about 25 companies. We can allocate up to PLN 4 million for the development of each project. In the case of larger projects, we do not exclude joint investments with other funds
Zbigniew Barwicz added.
Tangent Line is going to invest in start-ups operating in sectors such as industry 4.0, biotechnology, nutritional technology and agriculture as well as environmental protection. The team operates within a co-investment model – for every single transaction they will look for private investors – enterprises or business angels. Total capitalization including the co-investors contribution amounts to PLN 82 million. The fund will invest in start-ups at the seed and growth stage, while its investment strategy assumes capital entry above PLN 5 million.
Since 2018, PFR Ventures has made total investments in 34 funds that are active in searching for the best and the most innovative projects. In total, they are ready to allocate more than PLN 2 billion in investment projects.