Q4 2022 Angel to Seed funding totaled $6.9bn around the world[1] — down 16% quarter over quarter and 35% yoy. Some would look at that as a setback, others will be relieved to put the bubble behind their shoulders and bless the return to fundamentals.

Besides this eternal debate, the important question is another one: where has all this capital flown?

Here’s my 3 main takeaways:

1. The most demanded Christmas’ gifts were in the AI, DevTools, Fintech & web3 verticals.
2. Climate is making a lot of buzz but struggling to generate VC-grade deal flow for the moment.
3. E-commerce is not dead; the best VCs worldwide are keeping an eye on tools & infra for digital commerce (ex. Flvrs in US).

Let’s be clear: my goal here is not to make predictions about the future (still struggling with the crystal ball), but to make you relive the best moments of your recent past.

So here we are, let’s have a look to Pre-Seed and Seed hottest verticals of Q4 2022 🌶:

AI

Impossible to count all the different use cases, but few of them made Tier I VCs take out their cash book:

• AI for video and media assets with Twelve Labs (US) that applies AI to power video search by extracting actions, objects, text and speech (Index’s deal);
• In Biotech, Cradle (CH) pushed it through to generate proteins design recommendations and Levity (DE) is dusting off workflow automation (Balderton’s deal);
• ChatGPT owned by OpenAI, which just raised $10bn with Microsoft. We should be prepared to see a new generation of startups as companies build applications on top of OpenAI’s software (i.e., text to image with DALL-E, copywriting with Jasper). Also, Microsoft competing with Google on web search could generate new opportunities for MarTech startups.

Dev tools

We are still at level one: the key challenge here is to simplify the work of developers. Even if it has been a while since this topic is on the table, the pain remains unsolved. Different trendy use cases:

• Components pre-packed lines of codes: Clerk (US) for example is building pre-packed suite for user authentication and management (financed by a16z), or Lightdash (US) that turns a dev project into a full-stack BI platform (Accel’s deal);
• CI optimisation and scaling, with the example of Nx (US) that leverage on distributed task execution and computation caching;
• Customer support, with amazing example of Plain (UK) that complete the circle by building a customer support pre-packed suite for developers’ tools.

Fintech

Yes, there is still room to disrupt in the payment and savings industry. You don’t believe it? Here below 2 amazing companies that raised money last quarter:

• Atlar (DK), which is a B2B platform to automate payments and money movement. In the same CFO’s tooling galaxy, we can find Sequence (UK), that automatizes billing for financially complex contracts;
• The other example is Tellus (US), the saving app that boldly targets the B2C market. The promise here is to automatically turn your savings into a passive income generating up to 5.5%/y through investments in residential real estate. It seems that the US playground is still fertile for B2C investment platforms after Robinhood.

Web3

Besides the bear market and the few atomic bombs that exploded last year (May 2022 market crash, FTX bankruptcy, NFT crash, ok let’s stop here..), generalist funds are keeping investing in the web3 space.

Personally, I am falling for the crazy good stuffs that are happening in the music space, where a16z led the charge in Q4 in both Us and UK:

• Volta (UK): experience creation platform that helps artists (musicians, etc) to create immersive experiences in the metaverse (speaking easy: your fans enjoy your techno music concert with a perfect combo of light effects and underground atmosphere while you are actually mixing in your kitchen);
• Arpeggi (US): blockchain music creation platform. Artists can create and mint music as an NFT, and this is a big thing as it enables artists from all over the world to co-create and collaborate together on the same track, song, piece of art while tracking the ownership of it.

In addition to music:

• Community management and engagement is still attracting interest. Besides the numerous attempts during the last 18 months, the newcomer is Kalder in US;
• Also, crypto tax/admin tools with Binocs (India) that simplifies the calculation of crypto tax and portfolio tracking. In the same galaxy we have Request, that addresses invoicing, in our XAnge’s portfolio.

Last but not least, Buildspace (US), a crazy good idea that excited me a lot recently for his power to decentralise and put together people from all over the world to build projects over the time of a weekend. A model that I have seen germinate also in Europe recently, within some early-stage web3 start-ups.

We are at the end of this small capsule of souvenirs, you just saw all that is worth remembering of the last 3 months.

Stay tuned for next quarter!

Ps. Do you wish to further discuss these trends or are you building a SaaS/platform 4 climate or a B2B fintech startup?

Do not hesitate to drop me a message, I am particularly interested on that 😊

[1] Source Crunchbase

Q4 2022 | Pre-Seed & Seed deals: What’s hot? was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by : Fadwa Ouardani, Senior Associate at XAnge — Berlin

There is a big potential in the European health data economy over the next 10 years. The European eHealth market is projected to jump from €3.6 billion to €7.5 billion in the next five years. VC deals in Europe rose from €7.4 billion to $12.2 billion in 2021 and likely dived in 2022. Globally, Digital health investments reached an all-time high of over €52,7 billion in 2021 but then took a dive in the first quarter of 2022. The global value of health data was also growing and was expected to reach $34.27 billion last year, with a compound annual growth rate of 22%.

European Healthcare at a glance

The EU plans to save €5.5 billion over the next ten years due to better access to and exchange of health data in healthcare. An additional €5.4 billion in savings for the EU is possible due to the better use of health data for research, innovation, and policy making. This will contribute to an additional market growth between 20–30%.

When discussing growth and opportunities in healthcare, we must look at the unifying building block that is one of the keys to unlocking market growth: data.

The Benefits of Big Data in Healthcare

According to the professor of genomics and pioneer Eric J. Topol, a “Gutenberg moment” in healthcare is approached through dramatic technological advancements. Healthcare is experiencing a revolution as the printing press did in the 15th century. We are about to experience a shift in power from doctors to patients. He emphasizes the age of patient-centered medicine, in which patients generate medical data using their own digital devices and communicate via their smartphones. This shift will have several benefits:

• Big data will allow practitioners and hospitals to transition from a reactive, treatment-based approach to a more integrated, preventive model. This might lead to a dramatic shift in public health spending. In the US, about 80% of health spending went toward care and treatment. By 2040, 60% of health expenditures will go toward improving health and well-being.
• The intelligent use of data also can speed the development of tailored approaches for greater patient engagement, which could lead to better compliance. The holy grail is a 360° view of the patient. A complete understanding of all medical, social, and environmental information associated with an individual would lead to a “perfect machinery for treatment and prevention”.
• The analysis of big data helps providers develop best practices based on solid evidence. This is one of the primary drivers of the European Commission’s Health Data Space.

The State of Collaboration in Healthcare

When it comes to data collaboration in the healthcare industry, there are two major topics to consider:

1. The amount of data is skyrocketing: According to a study by the International Data Corporation, the data generation growth rate in the healthcare sector is expected to exceed that of any other industry sector through 2025. IDC predicts that the global amount of data will grow from 33 Zettabytes in 2018 to 175 Zettabytes by 2025. This is driven by data-aggregating initiatives in the healthcare sector, including electronic healthcare records created by public and private healthcare providers, biobank collections, and information generated by medical devices, social media, and data platform companies.
2. Players in healthcare are slow to adapt: As you’ll see below, all relevant players in the healthcare space are very slow to adapt to technological advancements, data aggregation and management, and interdisciplinary collaboration. While this is mainly driven by the sensitive nature of healthcare, it also means a slower adaptation of best practices and new concepts to improve the treatment of patients.

Challenges to Data Collaboration

When we look at the current state of collaboration in hospitals, we are far from the ideal. Data is often scattered and needs to be aggregated to have value for third parties. There are also challenges in sharing data within and between institutions.

• Privacy Restrictions Privacy restrictions imposed by federal law regulate the release of medical information and make it hard for new partnerships to form and for startups to use the data aggregated in hospitals and laboratories. With very limited financing, it’s hard to comply with the rise of regulations.
• Short-staffed Healthcare systems might want to improve their big data tools but lack staff members. But data and IT experts are just a small part of the workforce. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates we need and additional 18 million health workers to achieve universal healthcare by 2030 in low and lower-middle-income countries.
• Fragmentation Data fragmentation and the lack of uniform digitization impede efficiency, with some data overlooked because it’s stuck in silos. The decentralized nature of healthcare systems makes unified approaches difficult. AI and other technologies can only operate with digital information, but many organizations are still paper-based.

Opportunities for Startups in the Healthcare space

It took ten years and €4.6 billion to sequence the first genome. By now, the cost of genome sequencing has dropped extremely low from €26.7 million in 2004 to less than €1.000. There is a growing number of startups and organizations that stand for the opportunities that come with the rapid technological advancements.

• Lifen raised € 50M (€20M in 2019) and showed continued growth in France, with more than 600 healthcare institution clients using its services to support over 2 million patients monthly. Expects to recruit over 200 new employees over the next 18 months.
• MyPL provides multidisciplinary Cancer care. MyPL follows a patient-centered approach and has developed a set of solutions that improve the outcome of cancer treatment and provide patients with the appropriate management tools.
• Galeon built the first Electronic Health Record on the Blockchain to gather highly structured medical data.
• Health Data Hub The French government introduced 2019 the Health Data Hub. It’s a public structure that will enable project coordinators to easily access non-nominative data hosted on a secure platform in compliance with regulations and citizens’ rights. The goal is to improve the quality of care and patient support.
• Kiro improves the communication of lab test reports between clinical laboratories, health professionals, and patients. The platform makes the results of medical reports easier to understand and personal. The startup raised €2 million in 2019. Today, the company works with more than 230 laboratories in France that serve millions of patients.According to the company, “90% of our customers say they are satisfied with Kiro”. So much so that they are more inclined to accept the digitization of their test results.” The more patient-friendly reports have another positive side effect. The laboratories receive ⅓ fewer follow-up calls with questions from patients about their test results.
• European Health Data Space: The EU introduced the European Health Data Space in 2022. The EHDS is an ecosystem of rules, common standards and practices, infrastructures, and a governance framework that will give citizens digital access and control of their health data. The EU wants to foster a “single market for electronic health record systems, relevant medical devices, and high-risk AI systems.”

Data Ownership in Healthcare

Like everything else in healthcare, the question of data ownership is very complex. Today, health data belongs to both the patient and the health professionals. There is a difficult balance to strike.

On the one hand, AI software needs huge data sets to learn and train, as their accuracy depends mostly on the size and quality of this data set. On the other hand, outcries over data misuse or the exposure of millions of sensitive health reports are plenty, like when the Royal Free Hospital in London granted access to 1.6 million health records to Google’s AI subsidiary, DeepMind, to help the company develop an app that analyses test result data for patients.

An interesting idea to rethink the concept of data ownership in healthcare comes from Kathleen Liddell, David A. Simon, and Anneke Lucassen. The team proposes in a paper to move away from “ownership” towards a discussion about protecting individuals whose health information is processed, legitimate data use/users, and a healthy and well-functioning data economy.

Many questions still need to be discussed in order to move forward on this matter:

• How can healthcare providers balance protecting patient privacy with sharing information to benefit the patient and the broader healthcare system?
• Who owns the collected data that is collected? The hospital? The state? The patient?
• How should healthcare providers and policymakers address the social determinants of health, such as poverty, housing, and access to education, that can profoundly impact health outcomes?
• How can the healthcare system ensure everyone has access to the care they need, regardless of their ability to pay?
• How can healthcare providers obtain informed consent from patients, especially when patients may not fully understand a treatment’s potential risks and benefits?

The questions are an open debate, and I don’t think we will solve them anytime soon. What is certain is that we need to ensure very strong anonymization of our data. The good news is: one part of the solution can already be provided in certain cases by the use of synthetic data.

Synthetic Data

Synthetic data, simply put, is fake data generated from actual data. The method preserves the properties and statistical information of the original data while also protecting the privacy of individuals. The space is growing fast, and companies like Sarus let data scientists and analysts work on confidential datasets without accessing them directly.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of Synthetic Data: Fully synthetic data, where all records and variables in the data set are created from the synthesizer model; Partially synthetic data, where only some variables are synthesized, and the rest retain their original values; and Hybrid synthetic data, where some records are synthesized, and some original records are included.

Besides preserving the privacy of patients, Synthetic data could significantly improve interoperability standards in the sharing of health data. But to get there, we need to ensure that the data is not identifiable.

Investing in the future of health tech

Big data has the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry and bring a shift in power from doctors to patients. Big data allows for a more integrated, preventive model of healthcare, leading to improved spending on health and well-being. At XAnge, we focus on making technology accessible to billions of people. If you are building a startup in the space or want to contribute to its growth, get in touch — our inbox is always open.

The State of Data in 2023: Health Tech Industry was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Elle est discrète sur le sujet. Mathilde Collin, CEO et cofondatrice de Front est également Business Angel (Retool, Figma, Loom, Vanta, Lattice, Mercury, etc.). Je connais Mathilde car nous sommes tous les deux board members chez Welcome To The Jungle, et elle a accepté de me parler de cet aspect moins connu de sa vie.

Pourquoi es-tu devenue business angel en parallèle de tes fonctions de CEO de Front ?

Je suis très sensible à la théorie de l’effective altruisme. En gros, c’est une école de pensée qui te dit de te concentrer sur ce que tu sais faire le mieux, ce qui va ensuite te permettre de redistribuer la richesse que tu crées et ainsi d’augmenter ton impact.

Dans mon cas, ce que je sais bien faire (même si je peux toujours progresser !), c’est l’aventure entrepreneuriale de Front. Au fil des années, j’ai beaucoup écrit sur tout ce que j’apprends. Ça m’a permis de me faire connaître et de me créer un réseau qui me donne accès à pas mal d’opportunités de deals.

Cet atout, j’ai décidé de l’utiliser en finançant des startups dans lesquelles je crois, et sur lesquelles je peux être utile.

Quelle est justement ta manière d’aider les entrepreneurs ?

Ma carrière, mon engagement professionnel, c’est Front, et non pas mon activité d’investissement. C’est 99% de mon temps professionnel (en plus de ma famille), et c’est grâce à son succès présent et futur que je pourrai continuer à aider d’autres entrepreneurs.

Le temps que j’alloue à mon activité d’angel est clair : 2 heures par semaine. Donc je dois être efficace et honnête pour être utile aux entrepreneurs.

Là où les entrepreneurs me trouvent la plus utile, c’est dans le partage très transparent de mon expérience avec Front (une scale up SaaS), dans l’écoute sans rien attendre en retour, et dans le fait de donner des conseils sans être biaisée par le poids et l’enjeu de mon investissement (contrairement aux investisseurs professionnels).

Comment gères-tu cette activité ?

Comme j’y consacre 2 heures par semaine, je dois être très disciplinée. J’ai la chance de recevoir beaucoup de recommandations de deals. Je gagne donc beaucoup de temps.

Et comme je fonctionne à l’affect et à la confiance, j’investis dans environ 50 à 70% des startups à qui je parle, pour une dizaine d’investissements par an. Ce ratio est totalement contre-nature pour un VC n’est-ce pas Guillaume ?

En effet, nous, c’est même pas l’inverse, c’est radicalement l’inverse. Mais si tu fais confiance à ton réseau qui t’envoie des deals, il y a quand même des critères que tu évalues durant le pitch ?

Je passe 90% de mon temps à évaluer l’équipe. je n’ai malheureusement pas le temps (ni vraiment les compétences!) d’évaluer l’idée ou le marché. ce que je recherche chez les entrepreneurs que je soutiens, c’est un équilibre entre humilité et forte confiance en soi. c’est un équilibre difficile à atteindre!

Comment vois-tu l’évolution des Business Angel en France ?

C’est une activité extrêmement stimulante, qui peut même générer du retour sur investissement si c’est bien fait. Donc, c’est vrai que ces dernières années, on a vu de plus en plus de business angels apparaître en France. C’est une très bonne chose pour l’écosystème mais pour que cela perdure, il faut une condition : toujours plus de liquidités.

Plus d’exits, plus de secondaires, engendrent des succès entrepreneuriaux, et de la richesse qui permettent de renforcer l’activité et la légitimité des Business Angels.

“C’est grâce au succès de Front que je pourrai continuer à aider d’autres entrepreneurs.” was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Technical innovation in the energy, mobility, built environment and other sectors can bring significant leverage in decarbonisation. With the Climate Fellowship Program that we are launching, we intend to contribute to the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs in the “Climate Tech” throughout Europe.

Starting today (october 25) and until December 16, we will select fellow entrepreneurs, based across Europe, who will receive an equity investment of €100,000 to create and build their start-up. They will benefit from a support program to help them raise their first round of financing (seed round) within 12 months. XAnge will take a 7% stake in the startup created at the beginning of the program.

Also, we’ll rely on the international network and complementary expertise of its two key partners on this project: Energy Impact Partners and Techstars. The first will bring a complementary angle and business acumen on the climate tech side when the second will bring its start-up acceleration knowledge and a focus on sustainability.

We believe VCs can play a role in structuring the ecosystem.

VCs have a pivotal role to play in allocating equity to planet positive innovation. We have a form of responsibility in making capital available for those entrepreneurs and participating in disruptive sustainable innovation. With the Climate Fellowship program, we intend to accelerate the creation of new start-ups and coach founders to provide them with key success factors to build successful and ambitious businesses.

The ideal candidate…

… is someone with scientific or business background, passionate about new technologies and ready to kick start a start-up with high level of ambition. We are looking for high profiles able to quickly understand the complexity and technical aspects of the carbon cycles in their focus domain and how to build a tech value proposition with strong,. Ultimately we invest in future leaders in their space.

How does it work?

The call for applications is open from 25th of October to 16th of December 2022. Coaching of the fellow entrepreneurs will be organised in 3 months sprints will start in January and will last 6 to 12 months depending on the maturity of the projects.. XAnge is bringing equity but also theaccumulated experience in selecting the best entrepreneurs and the best investment topics. XAnge also builds on the valuable expertise of the Startup Success team and the networks of our communities.

This support has three objectives:

• to help them define the value proposition of their start-up
• to provide them with visibility and attractivity to source the best co-founders
• to raise a first round of seed funding at the end of the program

The fellow founders will create a formal company and receive a €100,000 equity SAFE funding for 7% of the capital. They will be supported by XAnge, Energy Impact Partners and Techstars during a year, they will also be actively supported by our ecosystem of experts and entrepreneurs coming from various climate tech backgrounds.

• Alexis Normand CEO of Greenly
• Gesa Biermann CEO of Pina.Earth
• Cyril Colin, CEO of Elum Energy
• Karen Fortin, Head of Sustainability & Healthcare Startup Development at Microsoft
• David Brandes, CEO of Planetary
• Robina Von Stein, Investor at Contrarian VC
• Michel Hunsicker, Investment Director at EDF Pulse Ventures
• Peet Denny, Founding Partner at Climate VC
• Joel Larsson, General Partner at Pale Blue Dot
• Benjamin Joffe, Partner at SOSV
• Charles Vaury, director of the Climate Agriculture Alliance
• Antoine Yeretzian, Head of Growth Axa Climate

Candidates will not be selected on the quality of their project (not necessary at this stage) but on their drive to tackle issues related to climate change, energy transition and scarcity of resources. They will be selected on their potential to become CEO’s of successful and global startups.

Link to the website to apply: www.climatefellowshipxange.com

Our Climate Fellowship program was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Anne-Camille Renaudeau, Venture Capital Analyst @XAnge

By crossing the €100Bn euro mark for the first time, European venture capital has set a record in 2021. One year later however, the economic context is much gloomier. As of June 17, the Nasdaq 100 Index has fallen by 32.2% and the STOXX Europe 600 by 10.8% YoY.

With a lag time, private markets are also preparing for a difficult period. With a foot on both sides of the Rhine, XAnge is well positioned to analyze trends in the VC market in France and Germany.

Let’s share our insights!

Germany crashes first — late stage drives the trend

2022 was off to a great start for European startups and VC funds as January scored very high. France even hit a record with €2.7Bn invested and six new unicorns: Qonto, Back Market, Exotec, Payfit, Ankorstore, and Spendesk. February and March followed well above 2021.US funds such as TCV, Tiger or General Atlantic participated in all 4 mega rounds (> €100m): Alma, Doctolib, Deepki, and Akeneo. Over Q1 as a whole, Europe remains quite stable with +10% in terms of volume and -10% on the number of rounds.

But the wind quickly changes and the first alarm bells are ringing by shrinking exits. As tech companies’ shares drop, IPOs become rare and only account for €9.1Bn over Q1 — compared to €63Bn the previous quarter.

Source: Crunchbase

Ahead of France, Germany is among the first European countries to be hit and records a -56% volume drop at the end of Q1. Late-stage venture (series C to E) is the main driver: across the Rhine, the number of rounds is almost flat but volume is divided by more than 3. This can be explained by Germany being a more mature market and American investors historically more present than in France. As a consequence, with a total of €4.5Bn against €2.5Bn in Q1, France exceeds Germany in terms of total capital injected into its startups, and this for the first time since Q1 2020!

Source: Crunchbase

Euphoria however quickly fades: the wave reaches France with a quarter delay. April and May mark a clear decline, even more noticeable in value than in volume — with only two rounds over €100m (Alan and HR Path). Closing the first half of 2022, June performs unexpectedly for France. The €2Bn mark is passed again thanks to a hundred transactions. 5 companies raise more than €100m: Electra, Platform.sh, Flying Whales, and Ecovadis — which becomes the 28th French unicorn.

Bottomline: over Europe in Q2, both the number of rounds and the volumes raised are cut by 30%. In Germany the quarter ends with a slow recovery, but investors remain extremely cautious.

Uneven impacts across stages and sectors — early-stage and climate on the rise

Late-stage rounds have undeniably slowed down, as illustrated by the reluctance of US fund Tiger, which has halved its investments since the end of Q1 2022. Valuations are down too. The most emblematic example in Europe is surely that of BNPL unicorn Klarna, which shed 12% of its staff and saw its valuation fall by a third at the end of May.

As refinancings become more difficult, French and German investors alike are massively alerting their portfolios to the troubled months ahead. Non-essential expenses must be drastically reduced to extend the runway, and alternative sources of financing to equity must be considered: the use of debt and convertible bonds should be massively increased. Like the takeover of Cajoo by Flink, a wave of consolidation is to be expected.

Early-stage however seems to resist in Europe over the first half of 2022. Compared to Q4 2021, the German market stumbled in Q1 (-25%) then recovered in Q2 and even recorded a slight increase (+13%). Late-stage investors partly deployed their capital in less risky early rounds instead.

Source: Crunchbase

If investors overall are much more cautious, not all sectors are equally affected. In the context of the global recession, customer-facing solutions could have a particularly difficult time. Conversely, fintech, cybersecurity or deep-tech startups may end up being relatively unscathed. Climate tech is a big trend of the last few weeks on both sides of the border and across all funding stages. 16 climate tech companies, from seed to Series C, received €1Bn fundings in France. In Germany alike, several seed rounds were announced, such as Caeli Wind, Charge Construct or Reverion. 2022 could be a remarkable year for climate tech!

—

Stay tuned — tension in the public markets should continue to have an impact on the German-French venture capital market in the coming months. This situation raises the tricky issue of financial sovereignty, which both countries are tackling by recently reaffirming their willingness to support their tech ecosystems. Germany plans to mobilise up to €30bn in private and public capital while Emmanuel Macron set the objective of 100 French unicorns, including 25 “green” ones, by 2030…

H1 2022 : VC market trends across the Rhine was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by : Clémentine Lemoine & Majdoline Wahbi

Two years after the start of the Covid crisis, we are identifying more clearly long-term HR trends related to changes in work habits. Firms and HR departments had to rethink their activities in an age of remote working and change of candidate’s priorities.

2021 was a great year for HRtech, with many successful fundraisings, some of them conducted by portfolio companies (360 Learning raised €200m, Skello raised €40m). HRtechs are no longer excluded from “super” fundraising rounds: in October 2021, Personio, the German workflow automation platform for SMEs, raised $270m at a valuation of $6.3b, becoming one of the most valuable startups in Europe.

In this edition of our HRtech mapping, we’ve chosen 172 startups with different focus on:

• Recruitment (sourcing and assessment: 41 startups),
• Temporary workforce (23 startups),
• Workforce management (employee engagement, data analytics, performance optimization, payroll & benefits, training: 108 startups).

NB: We have not included startups on the Future of workspace in this mapping — feel free to check our specific mapping on this subject.

Recruitment is the first challenge for HRs

According to the 2022 Edition Tissot and Payfit HR report, recruitment is among the three top challenges faced by HR, with the management of the Covid-19 crisis and the retention of existing employees.

The Talent War is raging. To help companies recruit, HRtech companies are offering various solutions to find the right candidate at the right time. The traditional sourcing methods are paired with:

• Marketing and programmatic recruitment solutions (Bonanza, Hiresweet, Seeqle): job offers are broadcasted on the web and on social media through recommendation algorithms.
• Cooptation solutions (Trusty, Keycoopt, Basile acquired last week by HelloWork): companies rely on existing employees’ networks to source the best potential new candidates.

Diversity is increasingly a top priority. Each One, 50 in Tech or Chance are working on the inclusion of women, minorities or refugees in recruitment processes.

Once candidates have applied, recruiters need to assess their personality and skills. Companies are trying to find more efficient and less biased solutions to assess candidates than traditional CVs:

• Applicant matching solutions (HrFlow.ai, JobyPepper, Jobgether) are easing the recruitment process by automatically matching candidates with offers, based on experience, personality, career perspectives, leveraging the power of AI.
• Assessment solutions (Maki, Goshaba) evaluates candidates’ hard and/or soft skills through tests and games.

Employees’ wellbeing is a top priority for talent retention.

In the US, the Covid-19 crisis shed light on “bullshit jobs” (conceptualized by David Graeber in 2018) and triggered the Great Resignation: 38 million Americans resigned in 2021.

This new context has dialed up the importance of employees wellbeing and startups offer different solutions to improve talent retention:

• By improving the “employee experience” during onboarding or other key moments (HeyTeam, Workelo). Employees are provided with the same level of care as clients.
• By enabling more communication within the company, to create cohesion and a better corporate culture (RandomCoffee, Zest).
• By addressing employee health and safety, be it mental health (MindDay, Moka.care, Teale) or physical health (Kiplin).
• By giving employees the opportunity to take initiatives within the company (Teamstarter) or for external purposes, notably environmental or social causes (Vendredi, MicroDon).

What matters is how the employee feels and if he/she is engaged at work. eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score) reflects employees’ opinions and allows HR and managers to make decisions to improve quality of life at work (Supermood, TeamMood).

To retain talents, companies need to address career and skills management. We invested in Neobrain (€20m in January 2022) with our fund La Poste Ventures, which allows for more efficient internal mobility, by deploying the right skills to the right projects.

Employees are paying more and more attention to their benefits. Beside traditional benefits, we’ve created two new benefit categories in this mapping:

• On demand pay solutions (Rosaly, Spayr, NessPay, Stairwage) give employees access to their pay as they earn it to improve financial well-being.
• New liquidity or tokens for employees (Caption, Futurz, Semper) give employees new liquidity options and provide companies with new opportunities to incentive employees.

Hybrid work is now mainstream.

The Covid-19 crisis sped up the digitalisation of the workspace. Hybrid work is the new normal. Many HRtech startups are seizing this opportunity by providing tools to facilitate the management of hybrid teams and to increase their productivity. It goes from easy meeting organization and collaborative meetings (Letsmeet, Klaxoon, Aster) to workspace and project management tools (Slite, Get collective).

The desire for flexibility goes further for some people who make the transition from employee work to freelance work. The segment of temporary workforce is still an important part of this mapping edition:

• Freelance marketplaces (Malt, Bruce, StaffMe for students).
• Staffing solutions on different verticals (Hublo or Medelse for hospitals) or scheduling solutions (Skello).
• Tools to organize as a collective (Collective.work).
• Solutions to manage status and access benefits (Jump, Wemind) which intend to give freelancers similar benefits as employees.

HRs need the right tools and the right data to be more strategic.

HR teams now have plenty of solutions to automate payroll, to manage absences and to store employee data… It enables them to focus on more strategic tasks such as quality of life at work, training, career and skills management (even if administrative tasks still account for 63% of their time according to Tissot and Payfit). But they also have to face a complexification of their job with a diversification of the missions and a multiplication of tools and data.

We therefore added the new category of Benchmark & Analytics in our 2022 mapping. It includes companies which tackle the need for visibility and actionable data. 70% of company executives quote People Analytics as a top priority. Startups are developing solutions to gather fragmented and unexploited data and provide new kinds of insights and benchmarks. Figures, for instance, has quickly become the reference when it comes to salaries benchmarks, while Reflect is building a people analytics platform with a focus on data shareability and benchmarks.

The past year has been busy for HRtech and we believe VCs will continue to bet big on it. We see massive opportunity in some trends initiated this year such as people analytics, new benefits for “customer” employees, and solutions promoting diversity and inclusion through unbiased recruitments.

Managing recruitment, retention and engagement in 2022 was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Three years after our first investment, we are proud to take part in Implicity’s 21M€ Series A. This is a new step towards the building of a Global leader in AI-based cardiac remote monitoring.

When we first invested in Implicity in 2019, the company only had one year of deployment in France. Three years later, Implicity turned into a French leader in remote monitoring of cardiac implantable electronic devices, with 60 000+ patients monitored, a 40% market share and a research partnership with the country’s Health Data Hub. It has also started its global expansion, with clients in the US, UK, Germany and Finland. Well done!

Given this impressive path, we didn’t think long before joining Implicity’s 21M€ Series A, alongside Crédit Mutuel Innovation, Bpifrance, Serena Capital, Karista and BNP Dev. Especially since the company is still far from having revealed its full potential, as the pandemic gave a boost to telemedicine and remote assistance.

A universal cardiac remote monitoring platform

Implicity has developed the first AI-powered universal cardiac monitoring platform aggregating and processing data from cardiac implantable electronic devices and external devices (such as connected weight scales) whatever the manufacturer or device model. Having all data in one platform is extremely convenient and useful for managing patient clinical situations. Thanks to Implicity Saas platform, medical staff can cope with the data tsunami from cardiac implants and external devices, boost their productivity and increase their quality of care.

Implicity is also developing and integrating over time in its platform medical algorithms which are digital medical devices.

For example, Implicity obtained at the end of 2021 the FDA clearance for its digital medical device reducing the false positives from Implantable Loop Recorders which is the fastest growing segment among cardiac implants.

A step towards preventive medicine

To progress toward a more predictive and data-based medicine, Implicity is also one of the very few companies allowed to work with the French Health Data Hub. Thanks to its access to the Health Data Hub, Implicity ambitions to develop a solution to predict heart failure crisis thus reducing patient hospitalization and reducing Healthcare costs

More than ever, we believe that Arnaud Rosier — the CEO and cardiologist himself — and his team are well positioned to develop the next generation cardiac remote monitoring solutions that will become new standards of care.

Implicity’s Series A: a new round to build the future of healthcare was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By : Elea Sirvent

Women health: a historically marginalised sector

In the 70’s, while representing half of the world’s population, women were excluded (by law) from clinical and drug trials because of their contraception, hormonal cycle and potential danger for a future pregnancy. Therefore, and despite women and men being biologically different, the dosage of drugs was calculated for men. As a result, women suffer from adverse drug reactions nearly twice as much as men, mostly because of a higher concentration in the blood and longer evacuation.

Since the beginning of the 90’s, the inclusion of women has been written in the law but their specific diseases and pains are still too unaddressed. We know that women experience migraines as much as three times more than men, but we still do not precisely know the causes and how to cure it. Endometriosis is a disease affecting more than 180M women in the world, but it is still misunderstood, and underdiagnosed by the scientific community and just started to make its way into the public debate.

What is Femtech?

The term “Femtech” was coined not so long ago in 2016 by Ida Tin, co-founder and CEO of Clue, an app for women to track their periods and fertility cycle. Ida came up with the term Femtech to designate all technologies dedicated to women’s health and wellness. It ranges from softwares (mobile apps, platforms), technologies (AIs, big data) to devices (tech enabled products, wearables, sensors).

The founder of Clue also wanted to give visibility to these startups often penalised and underrepresented because of taboos: “I went on to coin the term ‘FemTech’ as a way of helping to legitimise the female health tech market, thus driving forward innovation, attracting investment, and helping to normalise conversations about female health.” (Ida Tin)

Startups are booming to support women health throughout their entire life

Driven by (women) entrepreneurs, the Femtech market is currently booming and expected to reach $50B by 2025. Today, there are more than 807 Femtech companies in the world, 208 of which in Europe (Pitchbook data).

In the creation of our European Femtech ecosystem, the first wave of Femtech startups was targeting the big and rich market of reproductive health through contraception, period tracking, fertility and pregnancy: Clue (2012, $29.7M raised), Natural Cycles (2013, $37.5M raised), Ava (2014, $42.4M raised), Apricity (2016, €6M raised).

Since then, the market has been booming to tackle diseases and pains too unaddressed by medical professionals or still considered taboo by many, like menopause, endometriosis, POCS, post partum and sexual wellness.

We believe the next wave of Femtech startups are and will be the ones taking the biggest market size for the longest time, addressing the whole health cycle of the woman:

• Digital health companions to support women’s health and wellness in they daily life
• Hormonal health startups to monitor hormonal imbalances from puberty to menopause
• Startups focusing on pre, during and post pregnancy
• Solutions for pre, during and post menopause symptomes

We expect startups to extend their proposition value with the aim to bring complete solutions for women’s health. In a few years, the segments of our mapping will all be overlapped!

An underrepresented space on the investment scene

Globally, 2021 was a pivotal year for Femtech. According to Pitchbook, capital investments in Femtech surpassed $1B for the first time this year.

Yet, the market is still underrepresented in the investment landscape, especially in terms of exits, and we expect to see in the first European Femtech IPOs (like Progyny in 2019, US) and more M&A operations in the coming years, as women get more represented in the investment sector.

It’s only the beginning!

The next normal for women health: data and personalisation

With Femtech, we are not witnessing the boom of a trend but the beginning of the future of healthcare dedicated to women.

We believe data is the biggest growth opportunity for Femtech startups: health data will help to fuel research about women’s diseases and pains ; women’s biology will be better understood ; new treatments will be found ; Femtech solutions for women’s health will improve. Data will be a virtuous circle for women’s health, as long as businesses comply to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and that the collection of the data is super explicit for the clients.

In addition to fostering research, we believe data will enable a next gen of Femtech based on personalisation and daily health monitoring. This data-driven approach has already made the success of one of the most valued Femtech startups in Europe, Flo Health, with its $50M Series B last september. Flo Health uses biological data and AI to predict periods and ovulation and to give personalised insights to women based on their symptoms.

A giant unaddressed and tech-driven market enabling to encourage the representation of women in entrepreneurship and investments: the potential of Femtech is too big to be considered as a trend. It will be the next normal!

You are a Femtech founder and you would like to reach out to us ? Your startup does not appear on our mapping ? Contact us at victoire.serreau@xange.fr

The Femtech boom: going from niche to mainstream was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By : Dimitri Nitchoun

Le passage du Web2 au Web3 est en bonne voie. La Blockchain a permis de se passer des tiers de confiance lors des transactions et ainsi d’accélérer les cycles d’achats/ventes tant pour les entreprises que pour les particuliers. C’est également grâce à cette technologie que les NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) ont été créés.

Définition des NFTs

Un NFT ressemble à un Token classique sauf que ce dernier (i) n’est pas divisible et (ii) possède des propriétés uniques.

Pour donner un exemple, le bitcoin est un Token fongible, et chaque bitcoin a la même valeur. Cependant, si on prend l’exemple d’un échange de cartes Pokémon où chaque carte correspond à un NFT, chaque NFT (et donc chaque carte) a des caractéristiques et une valeur complètement différente des autres.

Il existe deux types de NFTs :
1. Les NFTs liés à d’autres actifs, c’est-à-dire les Tokens qui ont un lien avec des actifs du monde réel comme les performances des joueurs de football lors des matchs (Sorare).
2. Les NFTs intrinsèquement numériques, autrement dit les Tokens qui ne dépendent pas d’actifs du monde réel (tels que les chats sur Cryptokitties).

Voici différents types de NFTs listés de manière non exhaustive :
- Les CryptoArt (pièces d’arts uniquement conçues sous forme de NFTs)
- Les monnaies ou objets d’un jeu vidéo
- Un objet physique existant (par exemple des sneakers)
- Des sons ou des musiques…etc.

Facteurs liés à la montée en puissance des NFTs

Le fait que n’importe quel individu puisse désormais créer un NFT avec un minimum de connaissances explique en grande partie l’engouement pour les NFTs à l’heure actuelle. Ensuite, la création de marketplaces dédiées ont facilité le transfert de NFTs entre vendeurs et acheteurs.

1/ Désormais, tout le monde peut créer un NFT 👪

La connaissance requise pour manipuler des NFTs n’est plus le seul apanage de l’écosystème crypto-geek. Aujourd’hui, tout le monde peut créer un NFT et spéculer dessus moyennant certaines conditions.

En théorie, il suffit d’avoir un Wallet (par exemple MetaMask) et de proposer une image avec un design intéressant accompagnée d’un storytelling bien rodé.

Toutefois en pratique, il s’agit d’un procédé plus complexe car un nombre conséquent d’individus souhaitent créer des NFTs. Des startups se sont développées spécifiquement sur ces segments et il devient aujourd’hui difficile de rivaliser contre la concurrence. D’autant plus qu’il n’y a pas que les startups qui créent des NFTs : les artistes, les grandes entreprises, les stars de cinémas, ou même des particuliers amateurs se sont lancés.

2/ L’essor des Marketplaces de NFTs 🤝

Auparavant, les détenteurs de Tokens devaient s’échanger leurs collectibles (items à collectionner) entre eux et étaient limités dans leurs possibilités d’interactions, étant donné que les échanges de Tokens ne pouvaient s’opérer que sur la même Blockchain. Désormais, certaines marketplaces permettent d’échanger des Tokens issus de Blockchain différentes (Ethereum, Tezos, Solana), ce qui a justement offert la possibilité de fluidifier et d’accélérer les transactions de Tokens.

Aussi, les marketplaces permettent de faire rencontrer les créateurs de NFTs (l’offre) et les acheteurs potentiels (la demande) où ces derniers souhaitent spéculer ou en obtenir la propriété. L’une des marketplaces les plus connues est OpenSea, qui, en plus de permettre aux utilisateurs d’échanger toute forme de NFTs, permet d’en créer et d’inspecter les performances d’autres Wallets. Ainsi, au-delà du simple échange, les marketplaces ont intégré d’autres fonctions et se sont petit à petit verticalisées dans l’art, la création simplifiée de NFTs ou encore les Collectibles.

Cela a donné envie à d’autres acteurs bien établis sur les cryptomonnaies de développer leur marketplace de NFTs à l’instar de Coinbase.

Les tendances à l’heure actuelle

Au-delà du développement de l’écosystème crypto, de l’essor des marketplaces et du renfort des connaissances sur Solidity (langage de programmation pour développer les smart contracts), les NFTs initialement sous formes de collectibles se sont diversifiés pour toucher aujourd’hui de nombreuses verticales ⬇️

Gaming 🎮

Dans le domaine des jeux vidéo, les NFTs ont pris la forme d’objets de collection numérique comme des cartes à collectionner (Legends of Crypto), des animaux /créatures fantastiques (Dogami, Polychain Monsters, Wild Card), ou d’actifs liés au domaine sportif (Blockasset, Striking Entertainment, Deltatime).
A noter que des grands groupes comme Ubisoft travaillent à lancer leur propre blockchain afin de pouvoir échanger des items en cross-gaming d’un jeu à l’autre. EA Sports est également en train de bien analyser le sujet.

Luxe 💎

Avec les NFTs, il est désormais possible d’investir dans des vêtements de luxe (Nilos, IN|RIFT) ou obtenir un certificat de propriété pour prouver que l’article de luxe vous appartient (Arianee). Les grandes marques se joignent au mouvement, poussées par le FOMO (Fear of missing out) et les opportunités marketing potentielles qui s’en suivent. LVMH est d’ailleurs rentrée dans la danse.

Art 🎨

Certains artistes cherchent à vendre leurs œuvres numériques directement au grand public sans passer par des galeries d’art en plus d’obtenir une interaction plus forte et davantage personnelle avec leurs fans et acheteurs (Hashmasks, Reasoned Art).
Les NFTs dans ce secteur reposent principalement sur la création d’images, la photographie et la cinématographie (NFTs créés pour le lancement de Matrix 4, vente de scènes inédites de Pulp Fiction par Quentin Tarantino).

Musique 🎶

Les NFTs dans le domaine musical permettent principalement d’investir sur l’avenir d’un chanteur ou d’améliorer la proximité entre les chanteurs et leurs fans (Subtrack, Bolero Music). Ces derniers peuvent même participer au processus de création musicale de leurs artistes s’ils le souhaitent (Stage 11). Les stars en ont bien profité, notamment Shawn Mendes qui a réalisé environ 1 million de dollars de ventes de produits numériques en 10 minutes.

Les perspectives économiques des NFTs

L’avenir des NFTs n’est plus à prouver. En premier lieu, le marché des collectibles est en grande croissance sur l’année 2021 et explique l’accélération de la fréquence des levées de fonds sur le secteur. En second lieu, le Metaverse est un tremplin considérable pour le développement des NFTs dans le domaine du jeu vidéo.

1/ Un marché en forte croissance 📈

La taille de marché des objets de collection a été estimée à 412 milliards de dollars en 2020 et devrait atteindre 628 milliards de dollars d’ici 2031. Le segment des objets de collection numériques est celui qui connaît la croissance la plus rapide avec un CAGR de 14,2 % au cours de cette période.

Source : OpenSea.io, Cryptoart.io, Dune Analytics

Ensuite, le volume de ventes de NFTs connait une croissance importante (x10) à partir du milieu de l’année 2021.

Source : Nonfongible.com

Le nombre d’acheteurs sur le marché secondaire est également en augmentation et a même dépassé le nombre d’acheteurs sur le marché primaire depuis le mois d’août 2021. C’est notamment ce qui explique l’augmentation du volume de ventes visible sur le graphique précédent.

2/ L’accélération des levées de fonds et des Token Sales 💰

Aux US, les fonds VC Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures et l’incubateur 500 startups ont investi depuis 2018 sur plusieurs startups Gaming NFTs qui font partie des leaders du secteur : Cryptokitties, Zedrun ou encore Illuvium.

D’autres fonds américains ont également saisi l’opportunité dans le domaine du sport, comme le démontre le jeu TopShot de la startup Dapper Labs qui a réussi à lever 607 millions de dollars au global alors qu’elle a été créée seulement depuis 2018. Le momentum est également très présent en France avec Sorare qui a bouclé une série B à hauteur de 580 millions d’euros avec SoftBank en qualité de Lead investor.

Ces levées de fonds montrent une confiance accrue de la part des investisseurs et forgent des convictions puissantes sur le potentiel et l’avenir des NFTs. Parallèlement, cela ajoute de l’assurance pour les entrepreneurs qui souhaitent se lancer dans des projets liés aux NFTs.

Par ailleurs, des cas d’usages de levée de fonds spécifiquement adaptés aux startups NFTs sont en train d’éclore, à savoir les Token Private Sales. Ces opérations commencent à devenir courantes depuis que les fonds VC aux Etats-Unis ont lancé la tendance. Vous trouverez ici un excellent article qui résume le procédé de cette opération !

3/ Le développement du [META]verse 🤖

Il existe des contraintes techniques liées au développement du Metaverse, notamment pour regrouper 2 milliards de personnes à un instant T sur les mêmes serveurs.

Mais comme vous le savez, impossible n’est pas Facebook. Ou plutôt Meta.

En effet, l’entreprise va dépenser 10 milliards de dollars et recruter 10.000 personnes pour le développement du Metaverse afin d’obtenir 1 milliard d’utilisateur d’ici 2030.

Les NFTs permettraient aux personnes présentes dans un Metaverse (via leur avatar) d’avoir une preuve sur la propriété d’un objet in-game, de leur fixer une valeur monétaire et de pouvoir les échanger directement à d’autres joueurs. De même, les NFTs donneraient l’occasion d’acheter directement des objets lors d’évènements in-game (Fêtes, Concerts, Matchs sportifs, etc).

Une autre possibilité serait d’acheter ou échanger des terrains ou maisons à d’autres joueurs grâce à l’authentification desdits terrains sous forme de NFTs. The Sandbox en a même fait sa spécialité en développant un monde virtuel dans lequel les créateurs peuvent concevoir des jeux et les monétiser à l’aide de la blockchain Ethereum et une cryptomonnaie, le Sand. La startup vient de lever 93 millions de dollars avec Softbank, ce qui en dit long sur le potentiel du Metaverse et des NFTs !

Ressources utiles

💰 ICO HIGH, Le site de référence pour connaitre les private sales les plus récentes dans de nombreuses verticales (Gaming, DeFi, etc).

📈 CoinMarketCap, le website qui permet de savoir comment évolue le prix d’un token sur une échelle de temps donnée (comme une action en bourse).

🛠️Un excellent guide proposé par la startup Visionary Art pour apprendre à créer un NFT sur une marketplace.

Le mapping des startups dédiées aux NFTs was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By : Anne-Camille Renaudeau, Elea Sirvent, Guillaume Meulle

Innovations in workspaces has been around for many years

Born in Germany in the 90’s, coworking spaces were quickly adopted by Silicon Valley before becoming mainstream. With coworking, freelancers and small startups were able to rent desks and share costly infrastructure (meeting rooms, kitchen) with their coworkers. It was the beginning of the advent of flexibility in the workplace.

To accompany companies towards this new organisation of the workspace, many startups developed workplace management tools: occupancy analysis with sensors or dashboards, desks and meeting rooms booking solutions, office marketplaces…

In parallel, a lot of consulting or audit companies also developed in the 90’s a new approach: Flexoffice, where the desk is no longer owned by each employee but attributed according to each employee need (and presence). This approach was essentially a way to optimise real estate cost for them.

However, even though the office got more flexible, the workforce was still synchronized with the workspace, meaning employees’ work time and planning was always in line with their presence at the office. No need to plan localisation and time: one desk and one time, the time at your desk. Everything has changed since then, leading to new challenges to be solved by technology.

COVID and remote working democratization

Before the COVID and lockdown era, remote working was a marginal practice. When the workforce got forced, under constraint, to work from home, companies needed to find new ways to communicate, meet and collaborate without being in a similar workspace.

The workspace became fully virtual and it was the peak of the success of meeting tools like Zoom. More flexible schedule, no commuting time and less unproductive meetings…many advantages highlighted by collaborators of all companies. However, while the frontier between professional and personal life consequently tended to fade, downsides of fully remote modes are now known and shared by all: loneliness, mental health issues, lack of motivation and potential impact on productivity.

To face those new remote challenges, the market saw a surge in startups enabling remote working whether it is by allowing employees to have good working conditions at home (equipment), to be more productive or to keep weaving a bond with the team with virtual offices and gamified collaboration tools. But the full remote work mode remained unadapted for a large number of companies.

The future of work will be hybrid

With a few months of hindsight, hybrid work seems to have become the new optimum in the aftermath of Covid crisis… and will probably impose itself as a durable trend.A survey led by BCG in March 2021 indeed reveals 64% of international respondents would ideally opt for a hybrid work mode, splitting their schedule between home and office..

Yet more flexibility between home and office also means more uncertainty. While hybrid schedules allow companies to drastically cut their rental costs and average office size tends to shrink, space occupancy management has become a burning issue, requiring notable adjustments to traditional organization. This major change in the relationship to our offices represents great opportunities for entrepreneurs willing to shape the future of our workspaces and facilitate the switch to hybrid work.

Startups are booming to balance the uncertainty of this new flexibility

Indeed, as our mapping highlights, hybrid space management solutions are now the most crowded segment, reflecting the major trend towards this innovative yet challenging mode. We even see formerly coworking startups or traditional B2B SaaS platforms evolve towards hybrid work enablers.

Many new tools have emerged on the market to simplify the management of offices, optimize their occupancy, and optimize team collaboration and productivity while space and schedules are desynchronized. They developed features that will be the next normal: team planning management taking into account their potential geographic dispersion, allowing their members working on common projects to synchronize their schedules and plan strategic on-site or off-site meetings efficiently without risking over-capacity in the office. Offering a lot more than just add-ons to indicate your daily home-or-office status or your desk, those products become indispensable space and time management tools for office managers and team coordinators.

Maintaining corporate culture in a desynchronized workspace

Alongside digital solutions to recruit, onboard and train worldwide workforce, or to simplify internal administrative processes, workspace management companies contribute to the global boom of the HR tech ecosystem.

Maintaining team cohesion around common corporate culture and values has never been more critical, and this responsibility falls jointly on managers and human resources teams who must redouble their efforts and imagination. While entire teams no longer meet on a daily basis, informal and unifying conversations around the coffee machine are becoming scarcer, and team building sessions or company seminars are gaining in popularity.

New companies are riding this wave to offer unforgettable all-inclusive experiences, from renting an old castle to organizing olympiads and barbecues. Teams want to spend less time together working at the same place when not necessary, yet more quality time to bond and align goals. Needless to say, the future of the workspace is on the move and is not done surprising us…

Future of workspace is more than you think! was originally published in XAngeVC on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.