La Poste has created La Poste Ventures, its new venture capital fund for start-ups. The objective of this new fund is to identify and create innovative services that generate added value for its customers.
Customer satisfaction is one of the key priorities of La Poste, as stated in its new strategic plan "La Poste 2030, committed for you". Investing in innovation is one of the means for the Group to remain the preferred partner of its customers and develop personalised services.
The aim of La Poste Ventures is to anticipate changes in key sectors for the Group, explore new business models, imagine new use cases based on emerging technologies, and identify services that have a positive impact, i.e. that take into account social and environmental criteria.
La Poste Ventures is positioned to support investments in several business area and fields, with a medium-term development perspective.
La Poste Ventures will invest in service innovations based on emerging technologies in five areas linked to the Group's activities :
Connected and augmented logistics to enhance the user experience
Green and smart cities: sustainable services to develop the attractiveness of cities and regions
Phygital: combining digital technology with physical or human presence, with and without the need for contact, to optimise customer experiences and support the transformation of the public sector, regions and businesses
Health and well-being: innovative services for health-care providers and their beneficiaries
Digitisation: accelerate digital transformation, develop trusted digital technology, optimise the employee experience and improve performance
In the first years of the strategic plan, La Poste Ventures will invest €35 million to take minority shareholdings in seed and series-A (acceleration) start-ups, with investment tickets ranging from €300K to €3 million. The objective is to build a portfolio of 20 to 25 start-ups.
Based in France and Europe, the start-ups will be selected according to ESG criteria (environmental, social and governance) in collaboration with XAnge, a major European player in private equity in the field of innovation, and a long-standing partner of La Poste, ever since its creation in 2002.
La Poste Ventures integrates the existing start-up support tools provided by La Poste: "platform58", La Banque Postale's incubator for fintech and assurtech start-ups, start-up acceleration with Lab Fab, French IoT programs for start-ups in the field of logistics, as well as support for start-ups in the planning or creation stage with the "Coups de coeur La Poste #FemmesduNumériques" supported by KissKissBankBank, the crowd-funding platform.
La Poste Ventures will support the growth of the start-ups in which it invests. They will be able to benefit from the Group's different areas of expertise and network :
Access to a network of internal experts (banking, logistics, HR, etc.)
Opportunity to set up experiments or partnerships to co-develop services
Providing access to regional markets or customers
Support start-ups to generate a positive impact
"Open innovation, in its broadest sense, is already helping Le Groupe La Poste and its subsidiaries to grow. With this fund, we specifically aim to identify agile projects that combine customer orientation, positive impact and cutting-edge technologies. Investing in these types of start-ups is a good way to look ahead to 2030 and challenge our objectives."
Diane Abrahams
Director of Strategy, Transversal Partnerships and Innovation
XAnge, the expert partner of La Poste Ventures
XAnge is an early-stage investment fund based in Paris and Munich, with €500 million under management. Its investment team supports European entrepreneurs whose aim is to change everyday life through technology, by investing amounts from ranging from €500,000 to €10 million from the seed-funding stage. With an investment policy focused on making technology available to the widest possible audience, XAnge invests in the deep-tech, health-care, fintech, SaaS and e-commerce sectors.
For example, XAnge has invested in Lydia (Finance), Welcome to the Jungle (Human Resources), Believe (Music), MrSpex (eCommerce) and Ledger (cryptocurrencies). XAnge is the innovation brand of the Siparex Group.