The Solo GP Andrena Ventures fund hopes to support startup talents towards their next challenges

In the startup world, it’s not uncommon to see talent from successful companies start their own businesses. This is particularly evident in fintech in Europe, where alumni of unicorns like Monzo, N26, Revolut and others have launched a wave of new companies.

Andrena Ventures, a UK-based solo GP fund, wants to support this snowball effect by investing in such second-generation startups at pre-seed and seed stages. To do this, it raised $12 million from backers, including several venture capital firms and entrepreneurs.

The firm’s general partner, Gideon Valkin, told TechCrunch that while it will fund talent from European and UK fintech, Andrena itself is sector agnostic. He expects most of his portfolio companies to focus on other categories such as AI, climate technology and B2B enterprise solutions.

Andrena has already made its first investment: Nustom, an AI startup founded by Monzo co-founder Jonas Templestein, to whom Valkin reported when he worked at Monzo. Nustom hasn’t launched publicly yet (hence its succinct website), but it already has a long list of investors, including OpenAI, Balaji Srinivasan, Garry Tan, Naval Ravikant and others.

Andrena’s participation in Nustom’s funding round reflects the company’s thesis and strategy: Most of the time, she will contribute between $100,000 and $400,000 to rounds that will be led by others. However, Valkin hopes its network will make it easier for founders to raise Series A rounds, potentially from its limited partners or other investors it is connected with.

The solo GP approach

By leveraging its network and writing relatively small checks, Valkin hopes to gain access to attractive deals that larger funds may not be able or willing to participate in.

Having a small fund means that small investments have the potential to return the entire capital invested; for a larger company, such investments would not move the needle and would not be worth the risk. Valkin knows this side of the equation: after leaving Monzo, he became an angel investor himself and began working as a seed investor at venture capital firm Ouverture Capital, which is now one of the sponsors of Andrena.

But running a solo fund is not without its challenges, and not just because the management fees are proportionately lower. As my colleague Rebecca Szkutak pointed out last year, “emerging managers have been on the same roller coaster as startups in recent years.”

Valkin says he took a significant pay cut, but he sees that as an advantage: The founders can view him as a trusted partner who has just as much at stake. “I think it aligns us really well,” he said. he declared. Its value proposition is to open its network to founders and help them raise a Series A round, while relying on its operational know-how.

This diversity is more common in the United States than in Europe, where many local venture capital firms have never started a company. But things are changing and angel investments are increasingly common among European entrepreneurs, particularly in the fintech sector.

One of Andrena’s LPs, Taavet+Sten, is an investment vehicle led by Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus and Teleport co-founder Sten Tamkivi. Both are former Skype employees and have now officially launched an early-stage venture fund, Plural, with two other partners.

The fact that both men chose to support Valkin can be seen as a signal validating his thesis. With swarms of fintech employees looking for their next challenge, the name Valkin chose for his company is apt: Andrena is a kind of bee, and “pollination, in my mind, is probably the best analogy for what I do,” he says. said.