Sifted - French tech’s Family drama

Good morning there,

It’s probably French tech’s most notorious divorce: for the past two years, The Family — once a highly influential startup incubator — and one of its cofounders, Oussama Ammar, have been embroiled in seemingly endless legal battles.

It’s got everything to make a good Netflix series, involving millions of euros worth of controversial transactions, and a newly-built luxury countryside cottage that might soon be demolished. 

That’s not all: Ammar recently announced that he’s planning a comeback to French tech — despite the ongoing court cases. Read on for the juicy details.

Elsewhere today:

• SoftBank-backed startup Enpal doubles revenue amid tough year for solar
• Early Revolut backers on Crowdcube have seen their stakes rise 40,000% (!)
• Startup and VC funding platform Odin told to halt deals by UK regulator

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

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French tech’s Family drama

A couple of months ago, Oussama Ammar — the former cofounder of French startup incubator The Family — took to LinkedIn to announce that he was “returning to the startup game in Paris” with the launch of a new accelerator dubbed “The Labyrinth”.

It caused a bit of a stir. Comments underneath Ammar’s post range from a founder asking if the post is a joke, to another one enquiring where they can sign up.

That’s because Ammar is, arguably, one of the most controversial figures in French tech. Since he stopped working with The Family in 2022, he has been involved in multiple legal proceedings opened in France, the UK and the Cayman Islands, in which The Family accuses him of having embezzled millions from the organisation and its investors. 

Ammar denies the accusations. But recent developments have not gone his way.

Last December, a court in the Cayman Islands found — as part of a procedure in which Ammar did not participate — that he had misappropriated nearly €3.5m and ordered that he pay €7.3m in damages to The Family. In March 2024, Ammar opened a new case in the Cayman Islands to challenge the legitimacy of the entire procedure and invalidate the judgement; but a few weeks ago, the court ruled against Ammar again and confirmed the initial judgement. Ammar says that he is appealing the decision.

Ammar’s former cofounder Nicolas Colin tells Sifted that The Family is planning to enforce the judgement in Delaware and in France, where Ammar has assets. Ammar tells Sifted that he will “keep fighting” to stop courts outside the Cayman Islands from recognising the judgement. 

A few weeks later, at the start of August, another decision was issued by a court in the UK concerning a separate procedure, in which The Family accuses Ammar of having misappropriated more funds, and is seeking €9.5m in damages. The court authorised The Family to enter judgment against Ammar and scheduled a hearing in October to determine the exact damages he should pay to the organisation. 

“Money is obviously more important than reason in this system,” Ammar tells Sifted. “I don’t have enough funds in the short term. But I have no doubts that I will revert all this in the long term by becoming very rich and getting revenge on all these abusive procedures.”

In a bid to turn things around, Ammar announced in June that he is launching a litigation fund. He is hoping to raise at least €1m to launch procedures against The Family, which he says owes him carried interest and bonuses from the time he spent with the organisation. 

“No [entity of The Family] owes anything to Oussama Ammar or his companies,” says Colin.

“[I] hope that this won’t be an instance of numerous credulous investors committing funds to a lost cause.”

On Sifted’s website today, I have further details on the twists and turns of The Family’s battle. Read it all here. 

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

😯 Startup and VC funding platform Odin has been told to halt deals by the UK’s financial regulator. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided that Odin, which launched in April last year, doesn’t have the necessary regulatory permissions to arrange investments.

• Odin has paused deals — new and existing — for the time being, leaving some startups and investors, who were using the platform to fundraise, in the lurch. “We’ve also had some upset customers and we want to say — we hear you, and we understand why you’re annoyed,” Odin wrote in an email to customers this Sunday. 
• Cofounder Patrick Ryan tells Sifted he hopes Odin will be able to resume services within two to six weeks, by working with third-party partners which have the required permissions. 

📈 SoftBank-backed Enpal, which loans and sells solar panels and other home energy tech to consumers, doubled its revenue from €415m in 2022 to €905m in 2023, according to its latest audited accounts published yesterday.

• Meanwhile, the German startup’s operating profit, or adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) decreased from €22.5m in 2022 to €21.4m in 2023. 
• The results come after a tough year for German solar companies; according to Enpal, customer demand for photovoltaic (PV) panel installations decreased in the latter half of last year amid inflation, high interest rates and a drop in fossil fuel energy prices.

🤯 Early Revolut backers who invested in the neobank via crowdfunding platform Crowdcube have seen the value of their stakes increase by 40,000% after the company confirmed a new $45bn valuation last Friday. 

• In 2016, a small group of early Revolut users were invited to invest in the business at a £40m valuation through Crowdcube. A total of 433 investors took a punt on the company, putting in tickets ranging from £100 to a maximum of £5,000, with the fintech offering a maximum allocation of £1m. 
• Those who invested £1,000 would now have stakes worth just shy of $500k while those with enough guts to invest the maximum permitted amount will now hold shares worth more than $2m.

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👀 Biotech startups to watch, according to investors.

📍 20 climate intelligence startups to watch. (Sifted Pro subscribers)

💪 The state of Lisbon’s startup ecosystem. (Sponsored by Unicorn Factory Lisboa)

🎙️ Must listen: Podcast with Ilan Gur 

• We’re back with the latest episode of Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast, where we’re joined by Ilan Gur, CEO of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (or ARIA), a government body set up last year to fund ambitious, breakthrough innovations.
• We discuss what technologies he’s most excited about today, covering topics from neuroscience to “programmable plants” to fight climate change.

Stockholm-based Evroc, which hopes to raise €3bn to build Europe’s first hyperscale cloud provider, has raised €43m from investors including EQT Ventures, Swedish impact venture firm Norrsken VC and French VC Blisce, reports Swedish media DI. 

Zurich-based Flowit, an HR software to help managers get a better understanding of their employees’ needs and wishes, raised €4.2m in seed funding. Vi Partners and Alstin Capital led the round.

Munich, Germany-based XO Life, a platform which connects patients, healthcare providers and pharma companies, raised €7m in funding. Sandwater and Grazia Equity led the round and were joined by investors including Vi Partners, Bayern Kapital, Aescuvest, Isartal Ventures, Winning Mindset, MediVentures and Capacura.

Helsinki-based Nadmed, which has developed a new way of testing blood samples, raised €3.5m in Series A funding. Nordic Science Investments led the round and was joined by investors including Voima Ventures and University of Helsinki Funds.

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