Venture firm Partech closes new $750M growth fund

Five years after raising hundreds of millions for its first growth fund, prolific startup investor Partech Partners has closed a new, even bigger second one.

This time the company raised $750 million that will be used to fuel growth in European startups. The Paris-based VC firm, which maintains a San Francisco office on California Street and regularly funds new Bay Area businesses, said it has already infused five startups with cash from this new fund and is aiming to fund up to 15 companies. The focus is on digital-first operations for everything from enterprises to small businesses and consumers brands to health care, education, financial services and more — particularly for those it thinks could become European Fortune 500 companies.

Partech’s partners raised this new fund predominately remotely during the pandemic from more than 85 investors of various sizes including institutional investors, endowments, foundations, pension funds, family offices and angel investors across North America, Europe and Asia.

Omri Benayoun, a general partner at Partech, oversees the growth fund. The firm declined to make him available for comment.

Its portfolio includes Rohlik, a Prague-based startup founded in 2014 that is a vertically integrated online grocery market serving customers in Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Germany. The company has grown its operations from 1,000 daily orders in 2015 to 20,000 daily orders by the end of 2020, according to its website. And it most recently raised a €119 million Series C in July, which included Partech as an investor, according to Crunchbase.

The other startups that have already received funding from Partech's new growth fund include:

Established in 1982, the venture firm has offices in San Francisco, Paris, Berlin and Dakar and currently maintains several funds including global seed-stage funds, a global venture fund, an Africa-focused fund and the European growth fund.