The new vehicle will have €50 million to invest and already has €35 million following a syndicated first-round fundraising supported by Banque des Territoires – on behalf of the French State after the “Construire au Futur, Habiter le Futur” (Build the future, live in the future) project won the Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir’s “Innovative regions” request for proposals – as well as RTE, Allianz France, Groupe VyV, VINCI Énergies, Région Île-de-France and leading family offices.

This partnership, led by Inerbiz – our managerial and financial investment fund focused on supporting and funding innovative startups – forms part of our innovation policy, which aims to strengthen our ability to identify new enabling technologies in order to integrate them into our products.

This sectoral investment vehicle is targeting European Proptechs (Property Technology) in the seed stage. This segment counts more than 3000 startups in Europe (source: Proptech House), of which 85% are in seed phase, which demonstrates both the need for strategic and operational support for these young companies and the strength of this new wave of innovation that must be supported. According to Axeleo’s own acceleration model that combines investment and support since 2017, each startup will be backed in the maturation of its commercial offer and in the acceleration of its commercial strategy.

“Proptech is an industry that sits at the crossroads of digital technologies and traditional trades and which has not yet been very receptive to innovation: 0.1% of the added value invested in R&D, i.e. 24 times less than the average of the other sectors (source: EY). Axeleo Capital has already experienced the market with Deepki in 2016, and it was important to us to bring this project to fruition in order to be the 1st acceleration fund specialising in Proptech. In addition to our native ecosystem of serial entrepreneurs, we have brought together a pool of leading LPs committed to the transformation of the industry” says Eric Burdier, co-founder and Chairman of Axeleo Capital.

“In a changing market, we strongly believe that the building industry must adopt digital technology all along the value chain. Through this investment in Axeleo Proptech 1, VINCI Energies – which is playing an active role in digital transformation – is maintaining its commitment to making buildings smarter and more sustainable.  The funding strengthens our existing partnership with Axeleo and fits with our innovation policy, initiated four years ago with Inerbiz, our startup investment fund.  As an integrator, we believe that finding innovative new solutions at an early stage is crucial in anticipating and responding to our clients’ future needs,” said Philippe Conus, Director of innovation at VINCI Energies.