Partech

100+ C-level leaders. Three tracks. One day designed to trade playbooks, not pleasantries.    Last Thursday we hosted the 3rd edition of our C-Level (Un)Conference: a one-day gathering designed for honest, operator-to-operator dialogue.    From cracking enterprise sales cycles to architecting reliable AI systems, every session started with a few provokers and ended with practical truths.    This year, we mixed things up: - Sibling-Function Mashups: Cross-pollinating Sales, Ops, and Tech before breaking into deep dives.  - AI Across the Org: Where founders admitted what’s hype and what’s helping.  - Leadership Labs: Candid huddles on culture, burnout, and focus.    Huge thanks to every speaker, attendee, and Partechie who made the day one to remember.   See you next year with the same energy, and new questions to navigate! 💡

What happens when African tech companies mature beyond venture capital? This was the question at the heart of our recent gathering with ICON Corporate Finance, bringing together LPs, PE investors, and late-stage VC leaders in London to explore liquidity pathways in African tech. 🌍 “The question is no longer whether we can build resilient companies it’s whether we can now build resilient exits. To sustain momentum, we must connect venture capital, private equity and strategic acquirers into a seamless continuum of growth and liquidity,” commented our own Ogugua Osakwe-Adegbite from our Africa team.    The timing matters: with exits gaining momentum across the continent, the conversation has shifted from “if” to “how”, and critically, how we collaborate to make those pathways more predictable. “Believe in the compounding effect. Momentum is building across Africa, through successful exits, secondaries and IPOs. With patience and discipline, the pathways will widen,” added Edward Burbidge, CFA at ICON Corporate Finance.     What resonated most: - Exit readiness starts at day one. Governance, reporting, and value creation can’t be retrofitted. Founders who design for acquisition (not just funding) create optionality.  - PE-VC collaboration unlocks scale. When incentives align early, liquidity becomes a shared outcome, not a point of friction. Different capital serves different purposes, but the handoff matters.  - The playbook is widening. Secondary sales, structured exits, growth-to-PE transitions, strategic M&A, and increasingly IPOs are all live pathways. Africa isn’t following a single script.  - Corporates are leaning in. The appetite for African tech assets is real, but deals need to be bankable, not just buzz-worthy. Strategic buyers want to see fundamentals, not just narratives.   Speed isn’t the goal. Preparedness is. The most valuable exits aren’t the fastest; they’re the most deliberately constructed. A huge thank you to Bradley Wattrus (Yoco) and Jide O. (TPG) for sharing candidly from the founder and PE perspectives, and to everyone who made this first Partech x ICON collaboration so valuable. This is the start of an ongoing conversation. If you’re building growth-stage African tech and thinking strategically about liquidity, we’d love to hear from you. Cc Matthieu Marchand

And the Oscar goes to... 🏆 Two of our portfolio companies were named winners of the 2025 Allstars Awards by GP Bullhound!  - Prolific, the software-enabled marketplace that connects researchers with vetted participants, was named winner of the “Allstar Company Challenge” category - xFarm Technologies, the tech company digitalizing the agri-food sector, won the “ESG Company of the Year” category GP Bullhound’s Allstars Awards celebrate exceptional founders, investors, and leaders driving Europe’s technology ecosystem forward. For over two decades, the Allstars Awards have recognized the visionaries shaping one of the world’s most dynamic and resilient tech landscapes. This year’s ceremony spanned 14 category awards, and we’re proud that two of them were scooped up by our portfolio companies.  Congrats to the teams at Prolific, Phelim Bradley, and at xFarm Technologies, Matteo Vanotti and Matteo Cunial. This is only the start of their journeys!  👇 Check out the full categories and award winners in the comments Cc Omri Benayoun | Bruno CREMEL | André François-Poncet | Andrew Whiting | Paul Vider | Victor Huberson | Mohamed Damak | Alexis Lancien | Aya Murr | Louis Dessal | Paul Soulis | Rémi Said | Arnaud Minvielle | Laure de Haldat | Alice Bébéar | Pauline Lissavalid | Charlie Moussey

Procurement has long been held back by outdated, fragmented tools that waste time and add complexity. No one likes using them. In comes Mercanis. This AI-powered procurement suite brings procurement into the digital AI age with a state-of-the-art user experience, ensuring compliance and complete transparency. By automating manual tasks, Mercanis frees up procurement teams to focus on strategic initiatives: driving efficiency, savings, and real impact on the bottom line. The tool is designed to be quickly deployable (typically within 2–4 weeks), enabling mid-sized and enterprise-level teams to scale procurement operations with minimal IT support. ⚙️ The company’s platform delivers measurable results, including: - Over 40% process savings - A 2.5x increase in efficiency - A 12x return on investment Since their founding in 2020 in Berlin, Mercanis has become a trusted partner for procurement excellence across the chemical, automotive, energy, and construction industries, and more. They serve a global customer base, ranging from leading corporates to the Mittelstand. Driving this success is an exceptional team, supported by €30M in funding, who deliver efficiency and value across the entire supply chain. So where is Mercanis headed now? As the first Agentic-AI procurement suite, the company is doubling down on its mission: to turn procurement into a true value driver through autonomous workflows. Their next plays? Internationalization and reshaping how businesses worldwide approach procurement. Mercanis recently won the EY Supply Chain Now AI Procurement Award, and have also been recognized as a Gartner® Cool Vendor™. That’s what we call a MerCAN-do attitude! 💪 Now, here’s a fun fact about Mercanis: Did you know… Mercanis is derived from Mercury, both the Roman god of commerce and the fastest planet orbiting the sun. Like Mercury, Mercanis empowers commerce, and their AI embodies speed and agility, helping businesses move faster and smarter. 🪐 As their team grows, the company is always looking for exceptional talents that want to be part of their journey. Check out the open positions on Mercanis’ website in the comments 👇 Cc Fabian Heinrich | Moritz Weiermann

Something big is on the menu... 🍽️ GOURMEY, France’s pioneering cultivated food company, today announced their acquisition of VitalMeat to form PARIMA (creators of Gourmey), a global leader in next-generation animal production. With over 15 patent families and more than 70 patent applications, PARIMA is building the world’s most advanced portfolio of animal species and cultivated food creations, spanning premium dining and broader markets worldwide. This acquisition brings together Gourmey’s full-stack industrial platform, which includes premium cultivated duck products validated by Michelin-starred chefs, with Vital Meat’s poultry cell-line technology.  While PARIMA will drive the group’s global scale-up and industrial expansion, Gourmey will continue to operate as its culinary and innovation arm, focused on premium segments, established distribution channels, and collaborations with leading chefs and fine food distributors.  “This is the right moment for consolidation and scale,” said Nicolas Morin-Forest, CEO of PARIMA. “We’ve proven economic viability and are now expanding across species. By uniting two pioneering teams, we’re strengthening Europe’s ability to lead the global shift toward efficient and sustainable animal production through innovation, complementing existing methods and building more resilient value chains.” Many congratulations to the team at PARIMA for this acquisition, which will accelerate the company's global leadership across premium and large-scale markets. A true moment to savor! 😋 

Huge milestone for spacetech! 🛰️ The Exploration Company, the B2B and B2G aerospace company which designs spaceships to meet the logistical needs of space stations, has recently been included in Norrsken’s annual list of the 100 most promising impact startups in the world.  The list was compiled from 1,400 nominations from 50 leading VCs, including Sequoia Capital, EQT Ventures & Growth, and us. Of the 100 startups selected, 46 are based in Europe, such as The Exploration Company. What’s more: the home of The Exploration Company, Germany, leads the Norrsken Impact/100 list with 17 companies featured.  We’re proud to support the company as they redefine space exploration through a sustainable and affordable approach.  Congratulations to the team and to all those recognized; the sky’s the limit! 🚀 Check out Norrsken’s Impact/100 list in the comments 👇 

We’ve been named one of the top 50 best-performing investors by Sifted in their latest ranking! This recognition follows the release of Sifted 250: The fastest growing European startups in 2025, which features 6 of our portfolio companies! Sifted’s ranking is based on revenue growth over three financial years, and spotlights the startups whose growth trajectories signal real market demand and the potential to become the continent’s next generation of category leaders. We couldn’t be prouder to see six of our companies featured:  - The Exploration Company, the aerospace company democratizing space exploration  - Material Exchange, the platform transforming the way the fashion industry sources materials and products  - Shakers, the workforce orchestration platform connecting companies with top tech freelancers  - Exein, the world’s largest embedded runtime security provider  - Smartness, the revenue management system for hotels  - xFarm Technologies, the tech company digitalising the agri-food sector Huge congrats to all six companies on this feature; we can’t wait to see what you achieve next! 👏 Find the full ranking here: https://lnkd.in/ej7CVq6c    

Massive congratulations to Alison Imbert, Partner in our Seed fund, who has been selected as one of the Top 100 Women in Tech in Europe in 2025! 🎉   This list, created in collaboration with Sifted, SISTAFUND and STATION F out of thousands of nominations from Sifted readers, shines a light on 100 women shaping the future of European tech. Since joining Partech in 2018, Alison has been instrumental in developing our Seed fund. Now a Partner, she was involved in over twenty investments at seed stage, including Epsor, Joko, Orus, and Pennylane.  We’re delighted to see her dedication to helping founders reach their vision recognized, and we are sure that this is only the beginning! Congratulations again to Alison and to all those featured! 👇 Head to the comments for the full list! 

Got the shivers from the colder autumn mornings? 🥶 Here’s a newsletter full of events that will warm your heart! ❤️🔥 From three new additions to the our portfolio to a major acquisition, let’s take a sneak peak of all that September had in store:  - We welcomed IMP Software, Kredete, and Plumerai to the Partech family  - Platform.sh evolved into Upsun (formerly Platform.sh)   - Skello expanded into the Belgian market  - Groover announced its acquisition of Temple  - Weglot launched the Go Global program  Be sure to read the full newsletter for more port-fall-io news; find the link in the comments below! 👇 

Three weeks ago, the fintech company Kredete announced their $22M Series A funding.  In an exclusive Afridigest interview with Emeka Ajene, CEO Adeola Adedewe shares his story before Kredete, from getting rejected by 17 banks when moving to America to processing over $1B in the company.  The secret to success? He discovered that $100 billion in annual remittances to Africa could be turned into credit history for immigrants who get zero credit for these payments. In this conversation, Adeola discusses: - Why he pivoted from Africa to the diaspora  - Kredete’s $1B stablecoin architecture powering real-time payments   - The bank acquisition in Nigeria that changed everything  - Why Series A investors called it "insane infrastructure" From its origins in Detroit’s Techstars accelerator to its growing global footprint, Kredete is pioneering a new financial category at the intersection of inclusion, innovation, and infrastructure. Check out the full interview here for Adeola’s insights: https://lnkd.in/epS8-rQR