Newsletter #23: It Starts With The People

It Starts With The People 💡

View online version

Dear friends,

The past few months have been a time to say farewell to companies that have become independent (bye bye Folk, Cycle & Bonjour) and a time to say hello to new projects (hey there June and Crew - more on them, very soon!).

It's always bittersweet to see great people and companies leave the nest. And it's a time that reaffirms our strong-held belief that eFounders is about so much more than milestone MRRs, fundraisings, valuations and even building the best product. Our studio is first and foremost about people. It's about building communities of individuals, with diverse experiences and passions, who embrace challenges and strive to make their vision a reality. It starts with the people 🤗

And with this in mind, it's time to highlight what our amazing people have been up to over the last 3 months.

Behind The Numbers ✨

Like we've said before, fundraisings are not an end in itself, and Aircall's Series C of $65M was more of a testament to the team's sheer perseverance, ambition and success against all odds. Jonathan shared what it really meant to raise such a huge round in the midst of a global pandemic. Spoiler: it was a wild.

We're thrilled that our companies have raised a total of $148M since the start of 2020 and the combined valuation of all the companies we've launched has now reached $1.5B. We wouldn't be able to reach such milestones without our founders, entrepreneurs and ambitious talent who are passionate about their craft and are always aiming higher than the status quo.

Deep in Thought 💭

Those past months were also a time for reflection for many. Patricia, Kairn's CEO and co-founder shared their company's manifesto and Adrien, CEO and co-founder of Canyon shared a series of articles on how to turn into a crazy effective legal counsel. The drive and ambition of our eF20 founding teams are exhilarating. We can't wait to show you what we've got in store!

Do you know what Mention, Front, Forest Admin, Upflow and Folk have in common? They’re all « Filled » products by design. Thibaud reveals what this means and why all products aren’t created equal. A must read.

On our side, we continued to share our expertise on the startup studio model, Quentin shone a light on how exactly you can finance a startup studio. It's a question we've been getting pretty often and we hope it can help some future studio entrepreneurs out there.

But Always With a Bias Towards Action 🏃

Our teams churned their endless supply of ideas into action this quarter:

Slite just recently came out with a simple yet powerful Chrome add-on. They won't stop delivering on their mission to work more thoughtfully. We're already hooked!

And Multis took another step towards becoming a crypto-first neobank. They fully revamped their app. And it's looking pretty slick! Like they said, they don't just look good for a crypto-bank, they look good for a neo-bank 😉

Last but not least, Foxintelligence continued to grind out their weekly e-commerce newsletter. They published a ton of insights, including the top 50 e-commerce brands in France and got (yet again) lots of press coverage. No rest for the wicked!

We hope you enjoy the summer break and come back refreshed for an action-packed September. We'll be announcing the projects we've got in the works as part of our eF20 batch! So stay tuned... 👀

Why don't you come join us on our mission to build the future of work! Check out our current openings.