This Series A investment will allow the startup to foster its growth across Europe and boost its R&D initiatives. The company is hiring 100+ new employees over the next two years for its tech and sales teams and open an office in London.
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Leveraging its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, WeeFin empowers financial institutions to implement and oversee robust ESG strategies, ensuring compliance with national and international regulations.
Founded in 2018 by Grégoire Hug (former Head of Product R&D at BNP Paribas), Marion Aubert, Sabrine Aouida and Guillaume Klech, the company already works with over 35 clients in Europe gathering €4,454 billion assets under management and 8m+ portfolio companies. Notable clients include Natixis Investment Managers, La Financière de l'Echiquier, Ostrum Asset Management and Sycomore Asset Management.
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Regulatory frameworks now require financial institutions to measure their holdings’ impact in terms of Environment, Social and Governance, in order for them to invest more responsibly. Â
Climate, biodiversity, gender parity or human rights protection, monitoring an ESG strategy implies managing heterogeneous and distributed data coming from multiple providers, based on specific objectives and local regulations.
Such challenge requires from financial institutions time, adapted tools and qualified resources to manage the amount of data and models, before being able to efficiently define, handle, pilot and optimize their ESG strategy.
WeeFin developed ESG connect, a SaaS platform, allowing financial institutions to collect, aggregate and improve the quality of their data while analyzing and tracking their ESG commitments to produce required reporting. The startup also offers functionalities for their clients to invest more responsibility with add-ons based on shareholder’s engagement or exclusion policies allowing them to go beyond regulatory requirements.
The single platform gathers all data and processes from a company to improve collaboration and communication across teams, while saving time to focus on a more sustainable finance.
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This fundraising will allow WeeFin to become the go-to ESG platform in Europe. Â
The company supports clients in implementing ESG strategies and preparing for upcoming regulatory changes, such as the new SRI label reference framework (March 2024), the European regulation level 2 update on ESG transparency of financial products (SFDR) in 2025, and the implementation of the SDR regulation in the UK by the end of 2024.Â
To meet these objectives, WeeFin plans to hire over 100 new employees in France and the UK by the end of 2025, with a London office slated to open in the first quarter of 2024.
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Grégoire Hug, CEO and co-founder of WeeFin, states:
"This new funding will enable us to push our mission further by elevating the standards of sustainable finance, making our customers' lives easier, and guiding them towards increasingly ambitious ESG strategies. In 2024, we plan to expand our product range by introducing new functionalities to the platform. We are also enthusiastic about venturing into new markets in Europe, believing that impactful change for the planet comes through widespread commitment."Â
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Sabrine Aouida, Chief Impact Officer at WeeFin, adds:
"Since the inception of WeeFin, we have supported numerous financial institutions in developing and strengthening their ESG strategy. Seeing companies making a more robust commitment with our help brings us some much pride, and we look forward to going even further with them."
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"Monitoring environmental and social data is strategic to assets managers growth and investment. Yet it requires new processes and dedicated tools that match their requirements. Grégoire and his team’s extensive experience in ESG data management within financial institutions is key to conquering this market. Their product fits asset managers’ specific workflows, while ensuring they keep control of their ESG strategy, a value proposition unique to WeeFin", say Gil Doukhan, Partner, and Anaïs Monlong, Principal of IRIS.
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Daphné Dupont Gurs, Principal at Ring Capital, mentions:
‍"As an impact fund, we are convinced that financial institutions need to adopt more ambitious ESG strategies. Ging beyond regulations and reporting, transforming their investment practice for good, putting social, environment, and governance at the very heart of their invests. But it’s very hard to improve without the good tools, this is why we are proud to support WeeFin in its mission to provide the latest tech to responsible finance, allowing clients to define ambitious strategies and invest in companies that will effectively support the transition to a more sustainable world."
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"We are very pleased to continue supporting Weefin in its development. Two years ago, we identified the tremendous potential in Weefin to become a European champion in sustainable finance: a committed team with unique expertise in ESG, coupled with excellent execution capabilities. Since then, Weefin has established itself as a key player in ESG in France. With this Series A funding, Weefin gains new resources to replicate this success internationally and shake up the landscape of finance on a European scale." says Vincent Fauvet, President of Investir&+.
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A press kit is available here.
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About IRIS
IRIS is a European Venture and Growth firm specialized in tech, investing in seed, Series A, late stage, and growth. With offices and teams in Paris, Berlin, and Munich and a keen understanding of their markets and a robust international network, IRIS is a selective partner to the upcoming scale-ups and tech giants, helping them increase their visibility, business reach, and impact across the world. IRIS investments include, among others, companies such as Adjust, Braincube, Cohort, Escape, Exotec, Forto, Kyriba, Jedox, LeanIX, Lumapps, Lookout, Red Points, Shift, Spinergie, SurePay, Talend, Talon.one, Workpath and Zeta Global. For more information, visit www.iris.vc
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About Ring Capital
An ecosystem dedicated to impact investing, Ring Capital finances and supports entrepreneurs offering solutions to major social and environmental challenges through 3 investment vehicles and a philanthropic fund. The Altitude fund is positioned in the growth impact segment and supports mature, profitable companies as they scale up, in particular through internationalisation and external growth. Mission is a venture impact fund that finances Series A start-ups. Generations powered by EDHEC, is an impact seed fund created with EDHEC and launched in October 2023. Finally, Ring Foundation is a philanthropic fund dedicated to financing and supporting tech associations that promote inclusion.
The founders, Geoffroy Bragadir, a successful web entrepreneur (founder and ex-CEO of Empruntis) and Nicolas Celier, ex-partner of Alven Capital, are surrounded by a complementary investment team made up of first-rate operational people (ex-Criteo CTO, webmarketing and data experts, etc.) and recognised investors. This team is supported by a community of experts and mentors within Ring2Success, the support programme dedicated to portfolio companies.
The funds under management come from institutional players such as Tikehau Capital, BPI France, the EIF and family or private investors.
For more information, visit : //www.ringcp.com/
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About Asterion Ventures :
The 1st venture capital fund structured to support high-potential impact entrepreneurs from seed stage and over the long term. We finance innovations that generate sustainable systemic change : companies that create new market references, become leaders in their category and lead an entire industry towards better practices. For more information, visit //www.asterionventures.com/
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About Investir&+ :
Investir&+ is a pioneer in evergreen impact investing. Its mission is to finance and support entrepreneurs who want to solve social and environmental problems on a massive scale. We invest in a wide range of sectors (healthcare, education, sustainable cities, agricultural transition, circular economy, etc.), and our portfolio includes some inspiring start ups such as Yuka, Murfy, Helloasso, Les Alchimistes, Recyclivre, Epoca and Make.org. Investir&+ helps founders to scale by mobilizing a community of more than 80 successful entrepreneurs.
For more information:Â //fr.investiretplus.com/
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Fargo Agency
Cassandre Ferrela - 06 16 83 64 55 - cferrela@fargo.agency
AĂŻssata Sissoko - 06 15 34 34 00 - asissoko@fargo.agency
IRIS
Emmanuelle Flahault-Franc - 06 21 82 08 23 - emmanuelle@iris.vc