Swiss venture capital firm Tenity announces first close of its early stage fintech fund

by James · April 1, 2023

Tenity (formerly F10), the Switzerland-based innovation ecosystem and early stage investor creating the future of finance, has announced on Thursday the first close of its Tenity Incubation Fund I.

The fund receives investments from SIX Group, UBS’s strategic venture and innovation unit, UBS Next, Julius Baer and Generalis House of InsurTech Switzerland, Tenity said in a statement.

According to the statement, Tenity Incubation Fund I will invest in fintech and insurtech companies at the angel, pre-seed and seed stage, emerging from the Tenity Flagship Incubation programs across its hubs in Europe and Asia.

The fund aims to be the first institutional investor in a startup, providing the team with funding, hands-on support and networking through the four-month Tenity incubation program to accelerate business growth at scale.

The sweet spot is entrepreneurs, who are at the idea stage or product development, but who are already on the market and who have not raised yet or only a small family circle.

For its limited partners, the fund will deliver both a strategic and financial return on investment.

Tenity will build a supersized portfolio and broad market coverage of several hundred companies, covering all sub-segments of fintech and insurtech.

It represents a unique opportunity for investors to participate in early-stage innovations with a high potential impact for the financial industry.

The Tenity seed programs have backed more than 250 startups to date, with alumni raising significant funding from amazing investors, such as Yokoy’s $80M Series B from Sequoia, Keyrock’s $72M Series B led by Ripple, Stableton’s CHF15M Series A led by TX Ventures , CoverGo’s USD15M Series A led by SemperViren’s VC, or Oper’s EUR11M Series A led by ABN Amro Ventures.

“We support founders over several months through the incubation program and use our experience to give them the tools and connections to succeed,” said Maximilian Spelmeyer, Chief Investment Officer of Tenity.

“With continued engagement from our partners, this year we are enhancing the Tenity offering through investment, as well as providing access to networking and business expertise, introductions to corporate partners, a selection of mentors and our investor network,

“Combined, these factors provide a fertile ground for companies to perfect their product, master a marketing strategy and increase the chance of future success,” he added.

With investments from leading global asset manager UBS, financial infrastructure SIX, wealth manager Julius Baer and insurance company Generali Switzerland, the fund is set to create tangible effects for innovation in the financial industry, and is eyeing a second close in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The Tenity Incubation Fund brings together a multidisciplinary team of investment and venture building experts with a shared vision to create the future of finance.

Led by Chief Investment Officer Maximilian Spelmeyer, the Tenity investment team looks to build a portfolio of around 400 companies across Switzerland, Western Europe and Asia Pacific.

The team has extensive experience in the financial sector and currently has an advisory mandate for SIX Fintech Ventures, the CVC of SIX Group, with portfolio companies such as Yokoy, Keyrock or Doconomy, Tenity InvestmentAG and the Tenity Global Asset balance sheet portfolio.