Verlinvest, a family-backed, “evergreen”, growth fund investor, that has previously funded a few well-known consumer brands like Oatly, Vita Coco, Tony’s Chocolonely, Who Gives A Crap, Pedego, Chewy.com, Hint & others, is getting into the venture game.
After putting around €50m into VC initiatives globally, it’s now embarking on being the kick-starter LP in a new VC fund dubbed V3 Ventures, the idea being to invest up to €100m into founders and brands directly.
While being independent of Verlinvest, V3 will still be able to leverage the former’s international network. The plan is to target startups in the UK, Europe, US, and India, focusing on pre-seed to Series A investments across e-commerce, health and beauty and food and beverage.
Lopo Champalimaud, who previously founded hair and beauty booking platform, Treatwell, after a stint as MD of lastminute.com, is V3’s co-founder.
I spoke to Champalimaud about the move and what V3’s strategy would be: “I’ve got over 25 years of being an entrepreneur and I figured the next 25 years helping entrepreneurs build their businesses,” he said.
“With V3 we plan to invest in consumer-focused companies, be global, and very much focus on ESG, because that’s where consumers are. It’s really about trying to think about how the consumer evolves and to remain at the forefront of that.”
V3’s Indian deals will be led by Arjun Vaidya, who sold the D2C ayurvedic medicine brand to the Dr. Vaidya’s brand.
To date, V3 Ventures has already invested in UK-based personalized cat food brand Katkin, US skincare startup Revea, and French supplement experts Cuure.
V3 Ventures launches to put €100M into startups in health, beauty and food by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch
