The Samwer brothers, the siblings behind Berlin’s Rocket Internet incubator known for launching clones of successful companies in new markets, have teamed up with Fabian Siegel, one of the co-founders of Delivery Hero, a global online food delivery platform, to launch a new fund to be headquartered in Munich, Germany.
Global Founders Capital will include three partners, including Siegel, Oliver and Marc Samwer, with a €150 million ($194 million) fund provided by unnamed tech entrepreneurs. It will operate separate from Rocket Internet, and will be location agnostic, but given the Samwer brothers name and its European base, it can be assumed that some regions will be given more focus, especially those where funding is scarce. With deals at €100,000 to €10 million, the new fund will focus on anything from seed to late stage that has the potential to lead one or several markets. It is said the fund will be similar to the European Founders Fund, previously launched by the Samwer brothers.
“I was fortunate throughout the last 15 years building Internet businesses. I believe the Internet is providing a once in a lifetime opportunity to entrepreneurs around the world,” Oliver Samwer said in a statement. “With Global Founders Capital we want to support these entrepreneurs with operational know-how, our network and the required funding to scale their businesses.”
Rather than providing follow-up funding or growth capital for Rocket Internet startups, this fund will focus on projects Rocket can’t do.
Though the fund has yet to announce any investments, the partners have already whittled down 800 leads to 130, with the expectation to do about 30 deals, the Wall St. Journal reported. The first investments will be announced later this year.
Much of the selection will have a data focus.
“A lot of VCs don’t appear to have a system. I am going to do 30 deals, but what happens to the 770 deals I am not doing? I want to track them, I want to look at the data. What can we learn from that?” Siegel told the Wall St. Journal. “Maybe we can build something that is more like a machine, that we can understand what works and what doesn’t. Or maybe we will find that it is all gut feeling after all.”