Partech

We had a sixth sense about them… @we_are_papernest , @pennylane_accounting , @Joko_fr , @Agicap_international , Epsor, and @mooncard.co , all made it into the Fintech 100 of 2026! Last year saw a fragile economy and a developing regulatory environment that fundamentally questioned the developing fintech industry: the market was forced to become more dynamic but also more selective. Despite what was thrown at them, these companies more than rose to the challenge! Congratulations to all the founders and teams featured! 🏆 Find the full list in our linktree in bio!

Spring is in full swing, and so are we! 🌼 We’ve seen growth all around, and with it sprouts our May Newsletter! 🌱 From record-breakers to award winners, we’ve compiled some amazing achievements from our portfolio. Here’s the rundown; - @Smartness_Ita smashed Italian funding round records with a €47 million Series B round - Parima broke regulatory foodtech history - @Paytsoftware dropped its analysis on the impact of commercial payment delays - 6 of our portfolio companies ranked in the Fintech 100 - Sensome published the successes of its medical software tests - Karnott released a timely update to its software Not to mention seeing something of a media takeover! Our own Emmanuel Delaveau and Tito Cookey-Gam made podcast appearances on @Finscalebusiness and The Term Sheet Tapes while Alison Imbert featured in Tech.Eu and Sifted. Head to the link in our linktree in bio for the full newsletter!

This otter makes a splash! 🦦 Opsmill just closed $14M Series A round led by IRIS with participation from Benhamou Global Ventures, @serenavcparis , and us. Born from the founders’ first-hand frustration with IT infrastructure lagging decades behind, OpsMill’s unique Infrahub platform helps network teams scale automation by adopting AI-driven operations. Since being founded in 2023, OpsMill has already developed a loyal global customer base with clients across retail, insurance, manufacturing, and fintech, including hyperscalers such as TikTok. With Infrahub, one of its clients even reported cutting service deployment times from five days to just 15 minutes. This new funding will help OpsMill expand its engineering and product teams to continue developing data-centric AIOps solutions in an emerging market. The otter romp is growing! 🪴 Congratulations to cofounders Damien Garros, Raphael Maunier, and the whole team! Read more about this funding round in our linktree in bio!

‘Underdogs bite harder!’ 🐕 @Smartness_Ita has just completed a €47 million Series B round led by @United_Ventures_team and @CDP_VentureCapital with our participation in the largest round ever completed in Italy for a vertical SaaS company! Founded in 2020, Smartness offers hoteliers and property managers an agentic system that analyses the data and market for accommodation to dynamically optimize prices in real time. Smartness has grown to more than 5,000 customers across 41 countries and reports a growth of more than 6x since its Series A round. This milestone aligns with Smartness’s clear goal for 2026: tripling revenue through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions across Europe. It’s well on track to becoming top dog of the hospitality software industry! Congratulations to co-founders LucaRodella, @TommasoCentonze , Eugenio Bancaro and the whole team! Find out more about their achievement in our linktree in bio!

Throwback Thursday! Two weeks ago, our own @Alison Imbert took the main stage at @go_entrepreneurs in Paris, at @parisladefensearena . Alongside @rvarza (@jointstationf ) and Marie Ekeland (2050), in a panel moderated by @charlie_perreau_ (@lesechos ), the conversation tackled a central tension for today’s investors: How to stay focused on your growing business when AI dramatically accelerates product development? To Alison, the quality and resilience of the founding team remain the most decisive factors for long-term success. She also highlights a generational shift: younger founders are natively integrating AI; not just to build faster, but to rethink how organizations operate and scale. Yet despite the efficiencies AI unlocks, one truth remains unchanged: building and leading a human team is something technology cannot replace. This conviction extends beyond investment practice. For Alison, mentoring and building long-term relationships, particularly with women in the ecosystem, is another way to help shape a more balanced and sustainable venture landscape. Watch the full recording of the panel and Alison’s interview (in French); in our linktree in bio!

‘It’s very hard to reconcile an African company if you’re sat in New York as a Goldmann and Sachs Trader’ In an episode titled ‘$300M Fund: How Partech Deploys Capital into African VC,’ our own Tito Cookey-Gam appears on the Term Sheet Tapes Podcast hosted by @louisfurtwaengler . Tito explains what he looks for in a business as well as the particular importance of secondaries within the volatile African market, creating deal flow and future security with the assurance of liquidity. None of this is possible without local on-continent expertise and participation. That’s what our Africa team does through in-person connection and sourcing of deals as well as with our annual Africa Tech VC Report. Find the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube in our linktree in bio! 🎧

Break the mold! That’s this year’s theme at @avca_africa and a question the African venture ecosystem has been wrestling with for years. On April 27 at 10:35, our own Tidjane Deme will take the stage alongside: - Fatoumata BA, Founder and Executive Chair, Jango Africa - Mohamed Eissa, Global Head, Venture Capital and Direct Investments, @IFC_org - Sapna Shah, Partner, Novastar Ventures On April 27, at 10:35, they will discuss the structural shifts taking place in the industry across Africa. Was the imported VC model ever fully suited to the continent’s realities, or did early-stage investing miss key structural, market, or operational nuances? The conversation will be moderated by Leo Batalov, Partner and Co-Head of Emerging Growth Companies and Venture Capital of @dlapiper , who are sponsoring the event. Full agenda and registration available at our linktree in bio!

An existential threat to businesses and the economy. @paytsoftware , in collaboration with @ipsosbva , has just released its exclusive analysis of the impact of commercial payment delays, and the results are sobering. 53% of company directors, more than half, have seen the stability of their businesses threatened by a client’s outstanding debt, for 20% of them this was ‘serious’ and even ‘severe’. Not only does outstanding debt threaten the structure of a business, but it has a domino effect; as a result, 49% of business have had to delay a payment to their suppliers or the salary of their workers, becoming a recurring issue for 7% of them. Additionally, 42% of companies have been forced to abandon following up on a late payment because its value was deemed inferior to the labour this would require, constituting a net loss. This analysis; realised to gain an accurate picture of what company directors truly experience, reveals late payments to constitute an existential threat to businesses, their workforces, and the economy. Payt’s platform, leading the industry managing customer receivables and dealing with more than 50 billion euros in transactions for more than 5000 companies, has never been so important. Congratulations to Payt for having brought the hidden effects of commercial payment delays to light; we’re proud to be a partner in this endeavour. Request the full report or find out more about Payt in our linktree in bio!

PARIMA has just made history! Global leader in cell-cultivated food, PARIMA, announce that it's the first company in the world to obtain regulatory approval for not one, but two different animal species! These include its cultivated duck and cultivated chicken! The authorisation of PARIMA’s cultivated duck in Singapore, one of the most advanced markets for cultivated food with a strict and transparent novel food approval process, marked the company’s second approval. This illustrates the sector’s transition into a more disciplined phase. ‘By securing approvals of two species within a few months, we have demonstrated the potential scale of our platform and core technology. Our focus now is commercialisation to deliver high-quality and safe products at meaningful volumes,’ said Parima CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest. The company’s high-performing cell lines grow efficiently in large industrial bioreactors and freely in suspension in a food-grade nutrient medium to ensure stability, affordability, and compatibility with global novel food regulations. This bypasses the genetic engineering, modification, and scaffolding materials that bottlenecked the sector’s early stages. Its approach has cleared a path to a production cost of below €10/kg alongside full compliance with all the requirements for novel food approval! With seven active regulatory filings across Europe, Asia, and North America, and their cultivated duck and chicken dossiers being the only two validated applications currently under risk assessment in the UK, PARIMA is positioned to serve both high-end gastronomy and targeted retail with safe and economically viable cultivated proteins! Bravo PARIMA! 🎉 Find out more about this achievement in our linktree in bio!

We’re approaching the end lap! 🏎️ The Automobile Club de France and ESSEC Automobile Club have partnered up to hold the 9th Edition of the Grand Prix ACF AutoTech rewarding the most innovative international and French startups devoted to the automotive sector. The final round will be judged on Wednesday the 15th of April! For the ultimate prize, finalists won’t just pitch on stage, they’ll face a jury of top executives driving innovation across the automobility and industrial landscape. Faced with sharp questions, bold visions, and real decisions, who will be able to convince the jury that they are the startup truly driving (😉) the industry forward? In-person tickets are now sold out, but the event will be livestreamed on YouTube at 7pm CET. Tune in and experience it all - live or on replay, anytime you want - with front-row access to the jury’s toughest questions! We’re delighted to be a partner, alongside AVP, @bpifrance , @eurazeo_group , @frdigitale , @speedinvestvc and many others. Find the link to the livestream in our linktree in bio!

Now more than ever, it is crucial to plan for when and how to exit in the world of VC startups. With the number of acquisitions having reached its lowest since 2020 and IPOs becoming more and more marginal, it has never been more important to learn from the concrete experiences of others in the field. For the first time, @Bpifrance Le Hub is partnering with us and Ventech to bring together a selection of CEOs on the 28th of April who will share their insights into and experience of a successful exit. After GP of Ventech Claire Houry’s presentation: “Founders Ultimate Exit Guideline," our own Reza Malekzadeh will be leading a round table with Pierre d’Epenoux, ex-CEO of ImCheck Therapeutics and Gilles Chetelat, ex-COO and Co-founder of StickyAdsTV. Up for discussion are: -The concrete experiences and critical decisions of CEOs who avoided the traps that threatened their success -The most strategic value-drivers -What attracts and deters buyers -How to plan 12, 24 and even 36 months in advance to maximize the chances of success These will be followed by a Q&A and a cocktail networking opportunity. 🍸 Don’t miss this event! Head to our linktree in bio to register!

300 million racing enthusiasts want to get better at driving but don't know how. Educational content isn't specific enough and professional coaches are expensive. This is where @tracktitan.io , the biggest learning and social platform for racing enthusiasts around the world, takes the wheel (😉). The company is building the "Strava for Motorsport" by combining AI driving tips with social and community features. Track Titan’s AI coach makes elite-level coaching accessible to gamers and drivers of all abilities, helping them improve their technique and connect with a global community of fellow fans on over 10 games including EA’s F1 series and iRacing, and in the real world. Founded in London in 2021, Track Titan has already made impressive progress: - More than 10X revenue growth since their pre-seed - 250,000+ users around the globe - 100K+ real-life F1 laps with insights - 100M+ sim laps recorded - 200K+ personalized news articles The company has also partnered with major manufacturers such as Fanatec to integrate their software into the gaming hardware that gives racers a more immersive experience. The team is truly on track for success! 🏎️ So, what lane are they headed to next? The team is currently working towards their ambition of becoming the “Strava for Motorsport” and eventually capturing every driving activity, whether in a racing game, go-karts or an F1 car. They are focusing on building more partnerships to fulfil this vision, in addition to their new AI voice coaching feature which will launch in 2026. And finally…a fun fact about Track Titan: The company started because its founder, maxteichert.racing, got scouted in racing games to race professionally in the real world, which led him to a driver coaching job with Porsche. He was also part of their Le Mans 24h-winning team! Check out Track Titan’s website here: 👉 https://www.tracktitan.io/begin And take a look at their current open positions here: 👉 https://www.tracktitan.io/careers