Audacious Ventures

Breega is one of the fastest growing VC funds in Europe with more than €500M AUM. We built Breega to provide founders with the help we wish we’d had. Breega propels pioneering and purpose-driven founders from idea into impact. We closed our first fund in 2015 and now have €500m AUM and 70 trailblazing portfolio companies. Crafted for founders by founders, we built Breega to provide start-ups with the help we wish we'd had. And we’ve created an investment proposition that’s purposefully designed. We call it full stack funding: providing capital and connections, expertise and experience, support and solidarity for entrepreneurs at every step of their journey. We invest across Europe through our 3 offices in Paris, London and Barcelona, focusing on pre-seed to Series B stage. We believe in a future where tech entrepreneurship has catalysed universal prosperity – so we decided to build a different kind of VC. Build by Founders. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we’ve been through the highs and lows of founding, failing, fundraising and flourishing. We built Breega to provide founders with the help we wish we’d had. For Founders. We wanted to “Bridge the Equity and Experience Gap” (hence the name Breega) – and fulfill the lack of operational expertise we saw in VC at that time. Breega began investing in 2015. We now have 70+ trailblazing startups in our portfolio. Our purpose today. To propel pioneering and purpose-driven founders from idea to impact.

In the start-up ecosystem, talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. Our mission is to correct that imbalance and level the playing field for founders in unusual places. We get involved: Whether it’s recruiting top talent, finding new investors or introducing potential customers, we directly assist founders with their most important priorities. We provide a platform: When you face a problem, it is the best to get the advice of someone who has been there. Over the years, we were fortunate to have met several of these people who managed to overcome serious hurdles We invest from experience: Our team are proven founders and operators in their own right, who bring that experience to the companies we back. We share the success: By distributing part of the overall fund profit, we ensure that when one of our companies succeeds, all of them benefit.

We are early believers in magically weird founders and help them realize their vision for the world. Our values. Chase the magically weird. “Chase the magically weird” pushes us to do things that take guts, focus on finding outliers, question the status quo, and let our freak flags fly. We love unconventional ideas, quirky personalities, bold choices, and things other people describe as ridiculous or stupid. We try to infuse magical weirdness into our events, our company culture, and everything else we put out in the world. Some examples of magical weirdness at work? Attending toilet paper conventions. Getting tattoos of company logos. Sending a founder pizza delivered by a dude dressed as a rat. Escape rooms. Alpacas. Bob Ross. You get the idea. If you’re a weirdo and/or you’re building something crazy, we’d love to chat! Be a bubbe. This value is our north star for how we interact with our founders and broader community. Lots of founders ask, “How do you typically work with the companies you invest in?” and our answer is that we aim to “be a bubbe.” Bubbe is the Yiddish word for a grandmother. In her purest form, a bubbe is incredibly (sometimes comically) hospitable, wise, protective, direct, and, occasionally, a little neurotic. Her love for you is unconditional, but she doesn’t take bullsh*t from anyone. She makes a mean matzo ball soup and she tells you like it is. Spending time with bubbe is good for the heart, soul, and stomach. In practice, this may look like: Checking in with founders about their lives and families. Hosting intimate events that feel like dinner at grandma’s house. Sharing personal stories. Sending freshly baked cookies. Communicating as directly as possible, but always with love. And maybe even hand-knitting some swag. Our character alignment is Chaotic Good. If Long Journey were a Dungeons & Dragons player, our character alignment would be Chaotic Good - a complex trait that combines a good heart with a free spirit. Chaotic Good characters make their own way, but remain kind. They value freedom and independence above all else, and they know that prosperity comes from empowering individual autonomy and looking beyond the standard mold - this is exactly what we aim to do. This value also reminds us to stay humble and not take ourselves too seriously. We are allergic to self-importance and entitlement, and drawn to curiosity and playfulness. Our “Chaotic Good” value reminds us to stick to our principles, have fun, and keep our eyes on the long game. It's not Monopoly money. “It’s not Monopoly money” emphasizes that we take money very seriously, and we appreciate that there’s a story behind every dollar. Wealth isn’t built overnight, and we feel a responsibility to honor the work our LPs put into building their wealth. We are disciplined, high-integrity stewards of our LPs’ capital, and we back founders who similarly care about and understand the value of that investment. We believe that money is fuel and money enables freedom. Our job is to return as much money as we possibly can to our LPs, and we don’t take that job lightly. We want to work with founders who understand and respect this value.

Phira Ventures is a Lisbon and New York based venture studio, partnering with exceptional talent to build businesses that deliver tangible value to communities and markets. We provide ideas, capital, and operational firepower to help bring a vision to life. Finding outstanding talent Find young, talented aspiring entrepreneurs who are very driven and would love to run their own business but have no good business ideas, access to capital or talent or a co-founder team. We will provide ideas (we have plenty!), capital, co-founders and an infrastructure to get a venture off the ground fast. We provide plenty of training, mentoring and an access to a network. What we expect in return? Dedication, an unshakeable will to succeed and a growth mindset. Investing in smart founders We invest in founders who already have a concept or even an existing startup but need both capital and some targeted support. E.g. in marketing, finance, legal, supply chain, software & design, product development, recruitment, international expansion or general strategy. Here we would seek to be most helpful investors on a startup's cap table. Incubate bold ideas ‍We completely incubate a venture ourselves. In some cases, we will have enough team capacity to build a business from scratch without finding a founder. We have many oven-ready ideas and have developed a lean and fast go to market strategy. We know what it takes to build We sit at the intersection of entrepreneurship and venture capital. As entrepreneurs, we know what it takes to build from the ground up: the uncertainty, the learning, the perseverance. As investors, we bring capital, structure, and a long-term view, grounded in the reality of building real companies. Investors who’ve been in the founder’s seat This dual perspective is what makes Phira different. We aim to be the most helpful investors on any cap table We don’t just advise from afar; we roll up our sleeves, apply our operational expertise, and help founders navigate the challenges we’ve faced firsthand.

Contrary is a venture firm, backed by the world's most iconic entrepreneurs, that identifies and invests in exceptional talent. We invest up to $2M in a small number of startups each year, and work closely alongside them to build enduring businesses. We're built like the startups we serve. We combine sophisticated software, a world-class talent team, and scouts to identify and invest in the world’s top talent – first – and then relentlessly support them from seed to scale. Because at the root of every category-defining startup are exceptional people.

“10x Founders” is a new and innovative European venture company backing early-stage entrepreneurs on their journey of building global companies. Our partners are a team of very successful serial entrepreneurs and accomplished investors with an outstanding investment track record. We genuinely enjoy and are motivated by giving back to, supporting, and collaborating with entrepreneurs and their teams to create global leaders. At the same time, we have the ambition to establish a creative new venture fund that helps to bring European start-ups and entrepreneurship to the forefront of the European and global economy.