Venture capital firm btov lifts the veil

Btov has its roots in an entrepreneurial student initiative called "START" at the University of St. Gallen. In 2000, five Business Angels approached the founders to get in contact with start-ups. The matchmaking evolved to a steady circle with regular investment activities. Following their first syndicated investment in 2004, the first btov fund was launched in 2006/2007. Further btov Funds were added in 2010/2011, 2015/2016 and 2017. Today, btov is a platform with three core business. The firm (1) operates the btov Investor Network, (2) designs and manages the btov funds, and (3) designs and manages tailor-made start-up portfolios in cooperation with major companies and selected families.

The report provides information about all three activities: 

1.      Private Investor Network
Btov provides members of the its network with vetted investment opportunities in seed, early and later stage tech companies from over 25 different industries.

By the end of 2016, the network comprised of 202 private investors. Thanks to the btov Private Investment Academy for Female Investors, btov was successful at growing the number of female investors by 58 percent in 2016. Overall, 24 percent of the members are from Switzerland. In 2016, the Network was involved in 40 investments with total investments amounting to almost EUR 12m. Ten out of 40 rounds were initial investments and consequently 30 rounds were follow-on investments. Almost half of it was invested in Medtech and healthcare sectors and in Fintech mainly in Series A financing rounds. 14 percent invested in Switzerland. 

2.      btov Funds
Btov operates own funds. The three btov Funds launched between 2006 and 2016 invested a total of EUR 54.02m in 231 financing rounds initialized by 88 different companies until the End of 2016. 55 percent of the total investments were made in medtech and healthcare sectors and in Fintech and a proportion of 12 percent (EUR 6.54 million) was invested in Switzerland. In 2017 a fourth fund was added. 

3.      btov Managed Partner Funds
The firm enables corporations, non-profit organizations, high net worth individuals and family offices to set up tailor-made venture capital funds. Besides supporting companies in developing a fund strategy, recruiting, orchestrating the legal set-up and preparing the fund’s operations, members of the managed Partner Fund coach the individual fund management teams on an ongoing basis to ensure smooth operations. The teams are part of the btov family but they run the Managed Partner Funds as if the funds were their own business. To-date, btov is managing funds for three partner: Helvetia with a fund volume of CHF 55 million with focus on insurtech companies; Ringier Digital Ventures which has fund volume of CHF 30 million, and one private family with discretionary portfolios that have a fund volume of between CHF 40 – 100 million.

The whole report can be downloaded from the btov website.