PLURAL
28.6.2022 09:02:27 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
Plural , a new investment platform started by the founders and backers of Europe’s most significant tech companies, has unveiled today a €250m early stage venture fund (Plural Platform SCSp RAIF, “Plural ”) to back the next generation of founders with global ambitions.
Set up by Ian Hogarth, Khaled Heloui, Sten Tamkivi and Taavet Hinrikus - with other recognised founders who will announce themselves soon - Plural is a scalable investment platform whose investors are exclusively former founders and operators with decades of company building experience.
Plural was founded because the Plural founders saw that across Europe the vast majority of investors lacked experience of building tech businesses. In Europe just 8% of investors are former operators, in contrast to more than half of tech investors in the US. Plural’s founders believe that the scar tissue from building tech companies is invaluable in helping the next generation of founders to build companies with global potential.
Plural’s intention is to be a more hands-on investor, with a focus on leading early stage rounds between €1 and €10m.
The Investment Manager’s investment committee have commented as follows:
Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise, said: “We’re the investors we would have liked to have when we were building our own companies. Founding a company is a craft and the best way to learn that craft is to work alongside those who have done it before.”
Ian Hogarth said: ‘We call experienced founders 'unemployables', because once you've experienced the intense authorship that comes with creating something new it's hard to work for anyone again. Plural was created to give unemployables a place to call home and put their entrepreneurial energy behind missions and founders they deeply believe in.”
Khaled Helioui said: “So much opportunity is left untapped today as exceptional founders often fail to meet standard investors’ pattern recognition criteria. Sadly investors lack the risk appetite needed to fulfill founders’ ambitions and consequently the full impact founders seek can not be realised. By changing the funding mechanisms that act as conservative gatekeepers today we can unlock so much potential.”
Sten Tamkivi said: “We are huge optimists for the potential of technology coming from Europe which can benefit the whole world, as well as improve the lives of people across the continent. We’ve already seen the real impact a well-funded startup scene can have on economies in small countries like Estonia — now it is time to scale this GDP level impact across the whole of Europe."
Between them Taavet, Sten, Ian and Khaled have founded four startups - Wise, Songkick, Teleport and Certific - and played a significant role in building three companies, including Skype, Bigpoint and Topia. All four operators turned investors have also been angel investing for years, with significant success. Companies in their portfolio include Deliveroo, Hopin, Pipedrive, Chorus, Uber, Zego and Bolt. As Plural, they have already invested in 14 companies including Feather , NFTport an NFT infrastructure company, energy storage company Field , metaverse company Ready Player Me and student banking challenger MOS .
About Plural : Set up by founders for founders, Plural is a €250m investment platform which is investing early stage venture capital in exceptional European tech companies. Its investors with scar tissue support founders to build tech companies that can make a GDP impact. https://pluralplatform.com
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220628005148/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah Inaugurates the First Ras Al Khaimah’s Business Consultancy in China, Strengthening Ties With Guangdong21.10.2026 23:46:00 CEST | Press release
HH Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, inaugurated the Emirate’s first business consultancy in China, marking a new chapter of cooperation and partnership. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261021542126/en/ His Highness Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, inaugurated the Emirate’s first business consultancy in China, located in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, stating that the launch reflects a long-term commitment to strengthening ties with partners in China and to creating new avenues for investment, trade and collaboration. (Photo: AETOSWire) Located in the industrial hub of Guangzhou, the consultancy will serve as a leading platform dedicated to strengthening Ras Al Khaimah’s engagement with Chinese businesses, facilitating expanding cooperation across key sectors. The inauguration builds on a relationship t
Octane AI Launches Phoenix, an AI Quiz Builder That Builds, Checks and Improves Quizzes for Shopify Brands21.10.2026 19:15:00 CEST | Press release
Phoenix builds a full quiz from a prompt or a document, catches broken logic before shoppers do and shows what every answer earns in Shopify revenue. Octane AI, the quiz and zero-party data platform for Shopify brands, launched Phoenix in October, its biggest release to date. Merchants describe the quiz they want or upload what they already have, and Phoenix builds it, checks it, personalizes the results and keeps improving it with experiments. One beta customer turned a single document into a complete product-launch quiz: “I attached it to Phoenix, and it built the whole thing, all the pages. It understood everything, not just the text but the logic behind it.” Across all live Octane AI quizzes, 15% of shoppers who finish a quiz place an order. Yet building one has meant hours of writing rules by hand, custom code for design and clicking through every path to find broken results. Phoenix handles those hard parts, from building a quiz to improving it after launch. “Since day one, we've
Cognite Earns Corporate Supplier of the Year Award from Marathon Petroleum Corporation21.10.2026 19:06:00 CEST | Press release
Cognite today announced it has been named Corporate Supplier of the Year winner in Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s 11th Annual Supplier Recognition Awards. The Supplier Recognition Awards is a program sponsored by Marathon Petroleum Corporation to honor suppliers that positively impacted the company’s business throughout the previous calendar year. “There’s a reason ‘Impact’ is one of Cognite’s most important core values,” said Girish Rishi, CEO of Cognite. “For us, the ultimate measure of our performance is delivering quantifiable value for our customers. From that perspective, the Corporate Supplier of the Year award from Marathon is particularly meaningful. Marathon Petroleum is an innovator, and to receive this recognition is a great honor to the Cognite community.” The Supplier of the Year Award from Marathon is the latest honor Cognite has received in 2026: In May, Cognite ranked 15th on CNBC’s Disruptor50 list, honoring venture-backed companies innovating across industries, exp
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. to Webcast Capital Markets Experience: China Ecosystem Immersion Presentations on November 4, 202621.10.2026 18:48:00 CEST | Press release
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) today announced that it will webcast presentations from its Capital Markets Experience: China Ecosystem Immersion in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The event will feature presentations from Stéphane de La Faverie, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Akhil Shrivastava, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, as well as members of the Company’s Executive Leadership Team and local leaders. The presentations will highlight the Company’s strategy and capabilities in China, Beauty Reimagined in action, and how China serves as a blueprint for deploying the Company’s global capabilities to drive sustainable growth and stronger profitability. Due to limited capacity, in-person attendance is by invitation only. Interested parties can access the live webcast on Wednesday, November 4th, beginning at 1:00 p.m. China Standard Time (12:00 a.m. ET) at Investors – The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. A replay of the webcast wi
Future Health and Bridge for Billions to Launch Programme Strengthening Health Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets21.10.2026 17:50:00 CEST | Press release
New programme will support locally rooted health entrepreneurs to build stronger ventures and deepen their impact in the communities they serve The programme responds to persistent gaps in capital and specialist support for promising health innovation across emerging markets First phase will target around 50 entrepreneurs leading late-incubation to early-acceleration ventures in Africa and Asia Entrepreneurs will receive tailored support, with selected groups later having the opportunity to access Abu Dhabi’s health innovations ecosystem Future Health – A Global Initiative by Abu Dhabi and Bridge for Billions will launch a new entrepreneurship programme designed to strengthen promising health ventures in emerging markets and help locally-developed solutions reach more people. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261021719421/en/ The first phase of the programme will target around 50 entrepreneurs leading late-incub
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom