German venture capital firm Point Nine, which backs companies including Delivery Hero, Revolut and Typeform, has raised €180 million in a new seed fund to support business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces and software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups, a report from Sifted said Monday (Sept. 26).
Point Nine’s strategy is to invest €500,000 to €5 million in seed-stage startups, usually in Europe, though 20% to 30% of its investments are in the U.S., Canada and Turkey.
Point Nine founding partner Christoph Janz has said that the goal of the firm is to invest in companies that were “less in the spotlight.”
In an interview with Sifted, Janz said Point Nine doesn’t have plans to invest differently or more cautiously given the way the market has been going.
He said Point Nine will be looking at investing in SaaS, B2B marketplaces, developer tools, APIs, crypto infrastructure, climate software and more.
The B2B market has seen a downturn, with the Sifted report noting Klarna and its 85% drop in valuation.
“So far, mostly B2B SaaS companies that sell to other startups or tech companies are affected. However, I think it’s very likely that we haven’t seen all of the effects yet,” said Janz, adding that 2022 and possibly 2023 would likely be slower for B2B companies.
Venture partners have been looking to get tech startups to accommodate the economy’s current state by innovating – with the ones that have pursued more innovations seeing more demand.
Read more: Report: VC Investors Urge Tech Firms to Continue ‘Innovation’
Shane Wall, venture partner and president of the CXO Network at Fusion Fund, has said there’s a lot hinging on what a company does during a downturn. His position is that tech chiefs can make advancement a priority to stay ahead of how the economy evolves.
He said the economy would likely get better in the next year, and there would be “winners and losers” but also big opportunities for growth.
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