KfW Capital launches “Emerging Manager Facility”: Focus on female or gender-diverse fund teams managing smaller fund volumes

• Building block of the German Federal Government’s Future Fund
• The aim: To improve market access for female or gender-diverse fund teams with smaller fund volumes
• KfW Capital to manage the facility on behalf of the German Federal Government
• EUR 200 million from the Future Fund

KfW Capital has just launched the new “Emerging Manager Facility” (EMF), a programme under which it will invest in small private venture capital (VC) funds managed by women or gender-diverse teams. These teams are often very young first-time entrants to the VC market (“emerging managers”). Under the EMF, the VC funds can receive up to EUR 12.5 million and not more than 25% of the fund volume from KfW Capital. As it does in all other programmes, KfW Capital first performs customary due diligence (DD), and if the outcome is positive it invests in the VC funds pari passu with private fund investors. The EMF is a further building block of the Federal Government’s future Fund which KfW Capital is coordinating on its behalf. Overall, some EUR 200 million is available from the Future Fund for the new programme until 2030.

“The EMF specifically provides female or gender-diverse VC fund teams with improved access to capital. We are pleased to be able to launch and implement this important building block of the Future Fund in the market with our expertise as an experienced fund investor. In order to develop the VC market further, we need not only financially stronger funds but also a larger number of emerging funds, which often occupy technological niches when they enter the market. More diverse VC teams can create new opportunities”,

said Dr Jörg Goschin, Senior Managing Director at KfW Capital.

The EMF invests in all sectors, and the target funds make their own investment decisions. In general terms, VC funds can receive capital from the EMF if they aspire to reach a maximum fund volume of EUR 50 million. This supports what are known as first-time funds, which typically have a lower volume than funds run by established managers. In addition, the teams must meet at least one of the following three criteria:

• The management team is composed of at least one third female and/or non-binary persons, or
• The senior investment team is composed of at least 40% female and/or non-binary persons, or
• The investment committee, the body of the VC fund that makes decisions about its investment activity, is composed of at least 40% female and/or non-binary persons.

Other criteria which the funds must meet include:

• They must be domiciled in Germany / Europe,
• They invest at least the amount obtained from the EMF to fund young, innovative technology firms domiciled in Germany,
• Their investment strategy must not be in breach of the exclusion criteria of KfW Capital (Exclusion-List-KfW-Capital_2022.pdf).
• Successful completion of DD

Further information on the EMF can be found at

www.kfw-capital.de/Investment-focus/.

About the Future Fund

KfW Capital is the coordinator of the “Future Fund” (“Participation Fund for Technologies of the Future”), which the Federal Government adopted in 2021. Under this fund, EUR 10 billion is being made available for the quantitative expansion and qualitative enhancement of existing financing offers and the development of new instruments until 2030. In addition, the ERP Special Fund is participating financially in multiple instruments of the Future Fund. Together with further private and public partners, the Future Fund aims to strengthen the VC ecosystem with its various modules on a sustainable basis. KfW Capital is coordinating the individual building blocks of the Future Fund jointly with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Ministry of Finance as well as KfW, the European Investment Fund, the High-tech Start-up Fund (HTGF) and the Deep Tech and Climate Fund (DTCF).

The Future Fund is currently composed of six building blocks: the ERP//Future Fund Growth Facility via KfW Capital, the GFF EIF Growth Facility, the European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) at the EIF, the DeepTech & Climate Funds and the Venture Tech Growth Financing fund, which was launched at KfW.
You will find more information at The “Zukunftsfonds” (Future Fund) (kfw-capital.de).

KfW Capital

As a wholly-owned venture capital subsidiary of KfW Group, KfW Capital invests in European venture capital funds with support from the ERP Special Fund and the Future Fund. The aim of KfW Capital is to sustainably bolster the VC fund landscape so as to give innovative technology companies in Germany better access to growth capital. In its investments KfW Capital applies the Sustainability Policy and Exclusion List of KfW Capital. The VC fund investor sets great store by the target funds’ observance of ESG criteria. Further information on KfW Capital, the programmes and KfW Capital’s VC fund portfolio is available at
www.kfw-capital.de.