Emerging Capital: The New Light Ventures Podcast

Marie-Christine Levet: Founding Partner at Educapital

August 28, 2024 • Pablo Castro • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Marie-Christine Levet is the President and co-founder of Educapital, the first and largest Edtech impact fund in Europe. Based in Paris, Educapital invests in innovative startups from late seed to Series B, focusing on entrepreneurs who are transforming the future of education and work. The fund manages two portfolios and recently closed its second fund at $150M. Educapital has invested in 30 companies, including Labster, 360Learning, Preply, Fourthrev, and Engageli.

Before founding Educapital, Marie-Christine was a pioneering entrepreneur, having founded Lycos and served as CEO of T-Online France, both major French internet and media companies. After these successful ventures, she transitioned to venture capital, leveraging her experience to support emerging CEOs. She was instrumental in creating Jaina Capital, one of France's first entrepreneur-focused funds, which invested in early-stage startups.

Driven by a strong belief in the imminent transformation of the education sector through innovation, Marie-Christine co-founded Educapital in 2017 with her partner, Litzie Maarek. Marie-Christine Levet is a graduate of HEC Paris and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Pablo Castro:

Welcome to the New Light Ventures podcast, the definitive guide to navigate the venture capital landscape. I'm your host, Pablo Castro, and every week we dive deep into stories, strategies, and successes of emerging vc managers, whether they're navigating their first fund in the midst of growing their second or successfully running their third. In this podcast, you'll gain exclusive insights from the front lines of fundraising, management and innovation. Whether you're an aspiring manager, Anhejdehe experienced investor but just curious of the world of venture capital, you've come to the right place. Join us as we explore the trials and triumphs of those shaping the future of investment. From in depth interviews with industry leaders to practical tips for our own venture journey, we're here to provide you with knowledge and inspiration you need to succeed. So subscribe now, share your thoughts and let's embark on this journey together. Welcome to the New Light Ventures podcast, where capital meets innovation. Let's dive in. Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the new Life Ventures podcast. Today we have a very special guest. We have Marie Christine, partner at Educapital. Marie Christine, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Thank you for inviting me. Pablo.

Pablo Castro:

Well, I'm super excited. I've been back and forth trying to have you on the show, so I'm super excited. We finally did it. I want to ask you, before we go into the questions, can you give us a little bit of information on educapital, what type of fund it is, the size of the fund, and who is part of the founding team?

Marie-Christine Levet:

Okay, so Ed Capital is the largest european fund dedicated to edtech and future work. We are in the generation of fund two. So we launched EdCapital in 2017 for our first fund of 50 million euro. We were the first european fund dedicated to edtech. And then we launched a second fund in 2021, last closing in 2023. This was a size of €150 million, making Eddy Capital the largest european fund dedicated to head tech and feature of work. So now we have two funds under management and 200 million euro under management. And I've been to created capital with my partner Lindsey. So we are one of the rare and only nearly fund managed by two women, at least in France and I guess in Europe. And there are not that many all over the world.

Pablo Castro:

First of all, amazing. Congratulations. Of course we need more women led funds. So I really want to commend you for that. And your partner on the fund, of course. So that's amazing. And just a couple of the background because I know a lot about you. I've researched a lot about you. But just so our audience knows, how did you get into venture capital? How did you decide to start up on, how did that story happen?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, I'm not an investor from day one. No, I came to the investor side on my second career. I started first as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, because I started in the tech industry quite a long time ago. In 1997, I started the Lycos in France. I don't know, quite young, but Lycos was a search engine before Google arrived at the market. It was from Carnegie Mellon in Boston, and we had. And I was a launch like us, in France. So, you know, I used the technology developed by Carnegie Bellon and launched the portal in France. And were one of the first search engines on the french market and one of the first portals in France. And basically I grew the company from zero. I started from zero. So I grew the company from zero to 20 million euro, grew the company from zero to 50%. And so I stayed there for, like, from 1970 to 2001. And then Lycos was sold to Telefonica in a spanish company. And at that point it was a joint venture with Leico between Bertholdswan, the media group, and Terra Telefonica. And they never invested any more in the technology, the product, and they let Google in. So that was a good lesson for me, that you always have to invest in the tech. And then after I took another company, I took tier nine in France. It was a subsidiary of tier nine, the telco, the dutch telecom. So I was more an entrepreneur because I was CEO of one of the big subsidiaries in France, which was an Internet access provider, computer to AOL. And were like a team of 500 persons. And that was a very. Now you would say to scale up. Because I took the company, it was 70 million euro turnover. I grew the company up to 400 million euro. And, you know, it was losing a lot of money and we made the company profitable. And I stayed there for like eight years, developed a lot. You know, we started with Internet access, then I developed telco operations and triple play with television, video and demand. So that was a very interesting experience. And I sold the company to one of my competitors. So we had an exit bit, less than 500 million. And then that was my second venture. First one was really startup, second one was scale up. And I did the third one, which was more restructuring, because I was a CEO of a company that was on a media traditional print company that was doing high tech newspapers and I took the company in order to turn it digital. And that was a lot of restructuring, a lot of unions, a lot of strikes to make a lot of layoffs, et cetera. And after this experience, I say that restructuring is not for me. I like the young companies that really grow, that developed a lot of energy. And that's how I became a VC, because at one point I said, okay, no more researcher in, I want to buy or take back a young company. And at that time I met a guy who is quite famous in France. He stole Maximi. He was the founder, he's a serial successful entrepreneur. He was the founder of Mythic that was bought by Match.com. And he has, it was 2007 and he launched one of the first early stage funds. And he told me, okay, do you want to take part in the adventure with me? And I say, okay. So I learned this new jobs of BNBC and I really liked the job. So were one of the first early stage hunt in France, really putting the first tickets. There was really a vacuum at that .2 thousand back in 2009. There was like, you know, business and mode and there was a traditional BC, but there was a vacuum for early stage, but there was no fund dedicated to early stage. So we are one of the first early stage we see. We invested a lot of companies with more than 25 companies in all areas, e commerce, adtech, and basically I really love the job. I really think that, really love what I like the most in this job is being with young entrepreneurs and really giving them advice about what I did in the past, what I succeed, what I failed, and really be a sort of sparing partner because I think that entrepreneurship can be quite lonely and it's quite important to have your aspiring partner. So I really like this job. And after, you know, four years with him, I say, you know, I want to have my own fund. And that's how I started the adventure in capital.

Pablo Castro:

Oh, wow, that is amazing. That's amazing. Congrats. And I just can also see how your story and experiences you have had can help so many founders that you support. Because you've seen the beginning of companies, you've seen the scaling of companies, the restructuring of companies, I think. And in your portfolio, you must see so many different companies that maybe need different help in different areas that are alike like that.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Yeah, definitely. I think that it's quite important to also give practical advice then, you know, it's different when you're an investor, you're on the other side. You cannot do it. Instead of the entrepreneurs often you see people doing mistakes, but often, you know, that you learn by doing your own mistakes.

Pablo Castro:

By doing mistakes. I agree 100%. And how did you guys create a thesis for educapital? How did it come about? I know thesis keeps moving.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Yeah. So basically that was in, were back in around 2013, you know, because I started China 2009. I stayed there for like four years. So it was by 20, 1314 at that time. So I really say myself, you know, I want to, you know, start my own DC. I think that, you know, there was a lot of generous DC. I said, you know, no need to do again, another general SVC. And I say that myself. I succeed when I started very early in some areas. I was very early in the Internet age. In 1997 was really the beginning of the Internet. And I really liked this beginning of areas and I stayed there. I looked at areas that were not that much digitized and there was like education and health. And basically I was very much interested in education because of my background, you know, I was raised in an area where education gave me everything. It's a teacher that told me, you should do this tool. I graduated from a very good business school in France, thanks to this teacher, was in an area which was quite a poor area with not very prestigious tools. And, you know, really, education was really, I think that I thank, you know, the education sector in France gives me all my chances. And I had also a son that was not the very typical scholar guy, you know, and I really looked at a lot of alternative ways to learn. How can you engage young students? How can you make that, you know, young junior reconcile with education and know, how can you change schools? So I was reading a lot of things about that. I was really interested in that. And at that point, I was a board member of a fund created by Google. It was a fund, you know, for press in France, for print press. They have created a 60 million euro fund to help, you know, media. So I knew very well the media. So Google asked me to be one of the board members in this fund. And I was often visiting Google in the US. And at that time I decided to really see, it was 2014, see what was happening in edtech in the US. And I met Lauren capital. And I say, you know, that, and I made also rich capital. And there was really the beginning of this funds in the US. And I say, why don't we have that in Europe? And I told myself, I want to create the learned capital of Europe because we need funds dedicated to education. That was really in a deep belief of changing the education sector, really bringing everything technology to them, brought to the other areas, to the education, because every day has been a generalist VC. Every day I was seeing people coming in my office. They wanted to change the e commerce area, the retail industry. They wanted to change the banking industry. They wanted to change the taxi industry. And I was coming back at home and I was writing my paper, you know, and fancy, you know, on the little book note of my six years old child that he was tomorrow, he did not do the stool. And I said, this is so archaic. This is so old, you know, why can we make, you know, this education be more modern, be more in line with what your generation used? And that's how the idea came to create Ed capital. It was around 2013.

Pablo Castro:

That is amazing. And again, I want to commend you for thesis, because I think edtech and education is such a market that doesn't deserve as much investment as it should. So I really want to commend you for that and thank you for that. And one thing I've realized along this journey also is that there's a difference between being a first time manager and a first time investor. And of course, you were a part of a fund before, but now with your own fund, what were some unexpected hurdles or obstacles that you encountered being a first time manager?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So I think that raising a fund is very tough. Raising this first fund was really tough. We were like first time team, first time manager of a fund, you know, and first time fund in an area, first time ed tech fund. So basically we had a lot of obstacles. You know, I think raising a fund is really hard. That's why I say it's a really, it's a long entrepreneurship journey. You need to be very resilient because, you know, we quite rapidly, we received the first 5 million. The first chain was quite easy to get. It was so, and so I told myself, okay, everybody. Everybody had told me, you know, it would be tough. Everybody. And I say, and you don't believe people. Even if people told you it would be tough, we didn't believe them. And basically it was tough because it took. Took us more than three years to raise the first fund and full time. I was not full time on the project in the beginning because I needed also to make my own living and I was doing certain jobs, but then were, like, needed two years full time raising the fund. And it's a long joke because you really need to convince a lot of people, you know, it's a lot of coffees you need to talk and hopefully so you need a lot of resilience. But I think that when you are really convinced we are convinced by the physics and I really want to meet the phases of bringing technology to the education area and also making some impact. I think it's interesting and you can earn a lot of money by selling clothes on the Internet but that doesn't change life. And at one point I really wanted at my own level to do things that are useful for people and I think that, you know, headset for that is really good. So basically to test time but you know, we succeed and thanks to people that trust us, you know, because you know, it's really tough to trust people that are low traffic or just so. And I really believe it's a lot of people that often we have met in my career, so it's often a lot of, you know, two times relation or three times relation. So it's basically, you know, most of my dress stuff are people I have been knowing all along my career, you know, so and so. And we have a mix of institutional investors like the french public bank, some banks, some insurers, we have also corporate, we have a lot of famous publishers and then we have a lot of private investors and family offices that really they all invest because of the faces because they really wanted to, you know, change education and give back to their country, you know, what the country has given to them. And it was really thesis and our belief in thesis was really all differentiating factor.

Pablo Castro:

No, I agree 100%. And one thing I'm hearing a lot from what you're saying is this word resilience. And of course one thing, doing three years trying to raise a fund takes a lot of resilience. What were the things that you did or you do in those weeks that are extremely hard in the weeks that are you get like, I mean like maybe two weeks directly of just nos. No, no. What were the things you did just to get back in a positive or neutral mindset?

Marie-Christine Levet:

I think the fact that went to was really big help. I think I would never have been able to do that by myself and I hope that my co founder will listen to that because I feel that being two is or being free team is very important because if you want is a bit demotivated the other one can really say we should do. And then were convinced that at one point we will make it because we thought it's so important. It's so important that we invest in education. I think that at one point you give back your hope and your, and your belief, you know, to other people. But it's, it was tough because it's first time funds are always tough. And education in Europe, people had the belief that education was free. So how can you do fun in the education area? You know, like, it's like you are changing and then, you know, so that was the first fund. So that was tough. But then the second fund was much easier because, you know, we also had the COVID you know, because, you know, all our phases that were saying, you know, school are late, we are not investing enough in edtech, you know, we are not ready, you know, Covid happened and everybody was at home realizing that the children didn't have anything that the school is that was taught to the children was very traditional. All the people realized that. So, you know, that all our investors, they realized that what were staying for years and years was right. And basically fund two was really much easier because, and then we had also very good companies in fund one that were performing quite well. So fund two was just, you know, resilience and energy. But it was very different stories. I feel that fun one is the most difficult one and you need to really, for us, we have like two free investors that really help us a lot. The french public bank, it really helps firsthand funds. So they really help us a lot. We had like one CEO of a big publishing company, one of the largest publishing company. His name is Ardo Nouri, who was CEO of Hachette, which is one of the largest publishers in the world. He really believed in the phases. And then we also had the large family offices, the family office from decathlon, the retail family. That really helped us a lot too. So we had like three people that really trust us and that really helped us trust the span. And then a lot of others joined the.

Pablo Castro:

Wow. And on this sense of your fundraising, because of course, when people hear the interview, they'll be, it sounds easy, but I can imagine it's one of the hardest things, just raising that first fund. Why did you decide on a fund, a bigger fund and not more of a smaller fund? I mean, every manager has a different strategy for their first fund, but how did you decide that first number?

Marie-Christine Levet:

I think that, you know, we want, I think that, you know, the aim of a fund is to be able to bring diversification, diversified portfolio. So we think that we needed 20 companies that was a good size. Otherwise, no, if you have like five or ten, you have really much more risk, you know, so we thought that 20 companies was a good size, and at that point, we wanted to invest around one and 2 million per company. So that makes the math. And then in order to have a team, because in order to do the things professionally, you need a team. We need a finance director in France. In order to do a fund, you have a lot of regulation, a lot of compliance. You need to be approved that the authority of the markets. So a lot of compliance and regulation. So we need to find the director, we need analysts. So then you need also a minimum fund size to be able to pay, you know, decently people and be able to work, you know, rent offices and be able to work. So we thought that 50 million was a good size.

Pablo Castro:

I think that is so true, because in some senses, I hear some funds that they raise a very small fund for their fund, and then they realize they really can't live off of their fund. So having a fund, two fund three is going to become impossible because it just doesn't sustain the amount of capital they have.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Yeah, you need to be also full time. You cannot devote your time to other things. You need to be able to pay yourself. And for us, we didn't want to be. You could do a fund with less money to pre seed, but, you know, for us, we thought that, you know, where we could really help the most the entrepreneurs. It was on series a post seed. It was that people really had concept and they need to scale. And this is really where I can bring also my experience because I've been able to scale company and I can bring more experience on that than really like precede area, which is also other, you know, like skills. You know, like pre seed needs to be very good in product for sure. And this is perhaps not that much, you know, for us. You know, we thought that, you know, we could. And my partner, she also had more experience in the growth capital. So that was more logic for us to be able to build a company between one and 10 million euro turnovers. A bit more on the series eight and seed area.

Pablo Castro:

No, it makes sense. It makes sense even by how the team is comprised and going more on the company side. One thing that is very important for managers is to be a good picker. A good picker of starters from all the companies they see, is the process that you guys have developed that you feel works best for you? Do you have a specific process to know what are the best companies specific things you look for?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So being specialized, I think is a great asset because I don't know how generous fund is when they have all areas from Gentech to medtech to edtech. So being specialized, I think is a great asset because, you know, edtech is a small market we able to know, and mostly we do in Europe are small countries. So we are able to really know in each countries which are the best companies. So what has been quite successful for us is that to really have long term relationships with entrepreneurs, that means that we often invest in entrepreneurs that we've been knowing for years. We've been supporting them when they were not raising money. We've been having the relation with them, then we invest in them a bit later. So we've been able to see what they have done in the last two years, if they have done what they say they will do. And I think this relation that was the most successful for us, having this long term relationship with entrepreneurs. And then you also need to be quick one of sport opportunities. And really this is something that there's no rule. You have to network and reach nowhere your areas and then be able to decide quick. There's one of our, we have two companies that have been doing quite well in our sun. One is preply. It's an online platform for language learning. They are already in 150 countries. It's a company above €130 million. We took it was around five to six. And this company really, I heard about this company from somebody I knew for a long time. And then they told us that there was a room and opportunity to invest. We had to decide very quickly. And the same, we have Labster. Labster is a danish company doing virtual laboratories for science. You know, it was a danish company. We've been hearing about that. We've been following them. And then we call them and they say, yes, we are raising, but we will end around this week. So we say, okay, next week, tomorrow we take your plane, we're coming to visit you. So you need to be quick when you sense opportunity.

Pablo Castro:

Amazing. And on these two companies, is there something you saw on the team after, of course, someone told you that this is a great company, you should check it out. You met with the team. Is there something specific things you saw that you were like, wow.

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, I think that the. I'm not going to say something very exceptional. Yes, a lot of other investors have told you the same, but what is the most important investment is really the team is the CEO and his drive, his ambition. Carril from Prep has a big ambition. He wants to do an IPo. He wants to do a $1 billion company. So you release the ambition behind the management team and their drive. And so I think it's the most important thing. And then definitely you need to be at the right moment in terms of market. Sometimes you arrive too early, sometimes too late. You need to be to have a differentiated product, good use of standing proposition. But frankly speaking, I think the most important thing is the team.

Pablo Castro:

No, I agree. And just these big visions, as you mentioned, from the founders, I remember maybe a couple months ago, I was talking with a founder of a company and they were already in their serious c, and I'm like, so what is your goal? And she was telling me, and it was more of a friendly conversation. She was telling me like, I want to be doing an ipo, and we're going to have our ipo in a year and a half. And I was like, and she was 100% serious. There was, there was no doubt, there's no doubt in her mind that was going to happen. I was like, wow, that is amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. In, in market trends, one of the things that we see, of course, in the market, things are changing a lot really fast. Of course, went through a crypto phase. Now we're in an AI phase. Also. How do you stay up to date in market trends and how does this influence your strategy, investing in edtech?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, VC is, market is a job, which trends, you know that, and you know that you have to follow this trend, you know, otherwise you're out of the market. So definitely AI is a big trend. I really believe that, you know, there are, there were trends in the VC market that I never understood that much. No web three was, I never understood it. Blog blockchain was, I wasn't great, even if it was very trendy at one point. But like AI, I really think has major influence in education because education is into contact and creative activity and AI, I'm impressed by what AI can do in the education area. You know, it started before generative AI. It started with adaptive learning. I really believe adaptive learning is one of the key trends in ed tech because I really believe that personalized learning, if you are able to offer personalized learning to somebody, you know, it really makes the person learn better. It's really obvious. And this is not something that happens just in tech. If you have a private tutor, you will do personalized learning review. So I think that what Ed tech has been able to do is to democratize this tutorial, this private tutorial and I really am strong believer that deep learning and I'm a strong believer that Gene AI would really have massive impact. So we already did one investment in Genai in a french company called knowledge. They help teachers create content based on any type of content. They use knowledge, they create quiz exercise very automatically. And right now we're going to announce two new investments in AIH during the summer and fall in the language learning. I really believe that AI generative AI has really a big impact in the way you learn languages because they can really practice with AI tutorial and really the AI tutorial can correct your language ad sound like I have a very strong franchise. So, you know, the AI so will correct me and that's good because otherwise teachers didn't correct me. That's true, you know, and then they tend to write your grammar ice cream. It's really hard. But then, you know, for all this investment, seed investment, so there's no risk because you know that when you do seed investment, you have less data. So for us in that type of AI investment, we do ticket a bit less important than what you do in other deals because you want to do a bit more in order to be able to, you know, have companies, some companies with success more than others, and then you have to do a bit more bets.

Pablo Castro:

No, no, I agree 100%. And one thing that I'm also seeing in edtech, and I would love your intake on this island, there's a lot of, at least what I'm seeing. Of course you're the expert, but from what I've seen, there's a lot of edtech companies that are in AI, that are in maybe language learning and some of them because they're pre seed or their seed, it's very similar. Still the concept, maybe there's some things that are different. What are things you do to maybe see which company will better in that sense, you know what I mean? Or you invest in two companies that are very similar. Also different funds have different strategies on that.

Marie-Christine Levet:

So often. No, we tend not to invest in similar companies. We think that in terms of ethics complex, we can invest in two language learning companies, one for adults and one for children, but we tend not to invest in similar companies. So usually we like when we have data, even if it's, for example, even if it's a free product, if you have a lot of usage data of the free product, that's a good sign. For me, usage data are the best science because if people like your product, you will always find a way to monetize it. So for B, two C, usage data is the biggest, is the most interesting thing. So often you look at usage data. If you don't have usage data, you look at what the experience of the founder don't think similar in the past hasn't been able to attract a community to grow as a product that interests people. So all is past experience. And then for B, two B, I think it's mainly united contracts. I think the best way to judge companies, the first contract they've been able to convince districts or teachers. So for me, I really like when products are used. That's why we invest in a company in Germany called no unity. It's a peer to peer content sharing platform for students. And they have been able to attract millions users. They have been attracted to 12 million users. And even before they did the first year of monetization, they already have six or 7 million users. So that's a good sign. That means, okay, they don't monetize, but when you have storage users, you will find a way to entail. So usage. How you are able to keep your user is very important.

Pablo Castro:

No, thank you for that. That clears a lot of questions from my mind also. So I really appreciate that in the sense of a secondary markets in later stage. What is your recommendation for emerging managers where like, okay, I've invested in these companies, but I want to create relationships so these companies get to later rounds and later investments. What have been things that work great for you guys on that sense in.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Order to get your company's refinance?

Pablo Castro:

Yes.

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, you know, it's having a lot of relation with other funds. I think one of the, our job is really to have relation with entrepreneurs, but also to have relation with other funds. So that's, I think really have close enough for us. We have close links with all the us funds, us tech funds, because when we have companies that are growing, want to go to us, have already proof of concept in the US, it's good to be refinanced by a US fund because we are more in Europe and so basically have a good relationship with the other funds, be able to. To do a deal, show review, you know, also, for example, me, I always go to Sujz, which is really, I think the largest event, just to meet my colleagues and be able to see trends, you know, understand more the market, understand more their views, etcetera. Because this is also important to build an equity story with the autobiography.

Pablo Castro:

No, no. That makes a lot of sense, especially. Yes.

Marie-Christine Levet:

And for us, we've been also, you know, in the last month, we've also focused a lot of our money to refinance our company. In 2023, the market was a bit special because a lot of companies came to the market with very high valuation because they had the 2021 valuation. You know, they could not fit in with their old valuation in the new market. So we've been focusing a lot on our own company and we have refinanced a lot of our own companies in order to really give them more, you know, cash, you know, to develop their business.

Pablo Castro:

No, no, that makes a lot of sense. Of course, 2021, I mean, we're coming out of a bull market. Definitely the valuations have been different, but that makes a lot of sense. Is there, is there, are you supporting all your companies? There are some companies that you're like, we want you to hit these metrics before we support you for refinancing. What is the conversation between you as partners?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, you know, what we do is that the best companies, we really refinance them and, you know, and helping them to either, you know, go to a series a or series b or, you know, and really grow and the one that are less performing, because there are some that are less performing, we often help them, you know, offered by also reinvestment to reach profitability. Because, you know, I think there are two ways. Either you are very fast growing companies, you can be in this style, you know, that you lose a lot of money, but, you know, you grow very rapidly and be able to raise different rounds. Oh, you know, that type of companies. And that happens. It doesn't mean that, you know, they do a good deal. But, you know, in this type, you know, I think it's very important that companies reach profitability. So we help them a lot, you know, to be able to have a sustainable business.

Pablo Castro:

No, perfect. That makes sense. That makes sense. And I just want to be, of course, very respectful of your time on the long term. On the long term for educapital. What is the vision that you see for the funds? How do you see it in 20 years? And how are you guys preparing for that long term vision also?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So, you know, I've been 20 years. Vision for a fund is quite off. You know, first you need like five years by five years because, you know, every five years you need to raise a new fund the way it was. So for now, we are in the middle of the deployment of fund two, but in two years from now, we will be able to go to the road and raise a fund. So we think that ad tech is really at its beginning, there's been only 3% of the market that is digitized. There's still a lot of things to do. So basically we want to raise the capital free. And basically we think that if you looked at the us fund, they started like us, 50,000,001st fund and 150 and some now have billions of management. So I think we need to raise, you know, other funds. And in the meantime we think about, you know, alternative versus strategy in education, for example, right now we are thinking about launching a smaller fund, you know, dedicated to schools because we think demand, big demand, you know, in the, in Europe for like specific schools, you know, to train people in all these transitions, technological transitions and really give jobs, people in all the jobs that are very demanded, like, you know, data, AI or also the climate change. And there's a lot of jobs that needs to be filled in this area. So we would like to perhaps create a specific vehicle due to financing tools.

Pablo Castro:

No, perfect. That makes sense. That makes sense. And of course, I know you've been an amazing entrepreneur. Entrepreneur, a venture capitalist, manager. How do you approach a balance between your professional life, personal life? I feel that balance is not the correct word, but how do you try to live 100% on both sides with so many demands on your time?

Marie-Christine Levet:

Yeah, I think that, you know, in terms of the way you organize your life, this is a nice job because you know, really you can organize your life as you want. You could do your job from any type of cities even if I like to meet intro face. But you know, it's a very flexible job in terms of the way of life because you don't have also huge teams when you're entrepreneur with 1000 person different when you see margin with like five persons. But I think that, so that's good thing of VC. The tough thing that I think it's a lot of mental, you know, mental charge because you have, for me we have like 36 companies in our portfolio. I have like nine companies I'm following. So it's tough not to think about it every time, every day and all the time. So I would say it's a nice way of life, but a lot of mental charge and I think it's tough to really be able to, I try to chat, you know, perhaps like three weeks a year but not that much. But I like what I'm doing also, you know, I like also very much the variety. I think it's a, you know, I think that there are not that many jobs that offer you so much variety for sure.

Pablo Castro:

So much learning of difference. Yeah.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Yes. So I think that's really what gives you a lot of energy and I think working with entrepreneurs also give a lot of energy. I think, you know, there are some different types of society, I take a lot of energy from other people. So I think this is a good job for me. Some people take an energy from like they are very concentrated one task for like many hours. For me it's like really relation with others and you know, and sharing and that gives me energy. That's the job that gives me energy. Even if it's a lot of work, it gives me a lot of energy.

Pablo Castro:

That is a perfect sign. I mean you are definitely fit for the job. Then the last question of course, and we have to have a part two is what kind of impact and legacy do you hope educapital leaves in the world of venture capital and the startups you support?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically, you know, we are one of the first, you know, we are impact fund, they get to edtech. So we have in Europe we have a very strong pipe regulation. That means that, you know, we are like article nine, it's the regulation we are in. So it's the really most up to the latest standard in terms of impact. That means that we do financial business plan but also impact business plan and we follow the impact, we follow three indicators, impact indicators for each company and then you know, 50% of our carry will be linked to the realization of the impact indicators. So impact is really at the central of capital and so it's basically impacted my own level. But I think that on my own level in education we really try to find companies that have impact either reaching a large number of people or be able to be very inclusive and help people, disadvantaged areas or children with problems or people without a job and really being able to measure the outcome. So I really believe that investing in education makes impact and that's good. Even if whether I change the whole problems of the world, I think that in our own level we do step by step we can change some problems.

Pablo Castro:

No, I agree 100%. I think what you're doing in education, edtech, as I talk with my friends, everyone has an education story. It might be, as you said, from a teacher, from a grandparent, from a class like, and it really does come a point that it changed your life, you know, so I think it is very powerful what you're doing.

Marie-Christine Levet:

And from this video, when you see all the problems in the world, you know, education is often the source of the problem and it can be also often the solution.

Pablo Castro:

No solution. Yeah, no, I agree 100% and I definitely have to have a second interview with you. I really appreciate your time. And before we finish, what is the best place where entrepreneurs can reach to you? Other partners, general partners can reach for you. What is the best place where people can reach you?

Marie-Christine Levet:

So basically we have a website where you can send your deck and otherwise you can send it to a pitch@educapitalvc.com. And we try to read all the data to answer to everybody. And I can also be rich and LinkedIn.

Pablo Castro:

Perfect. I will leave all those links on the show notes so anybody can just find them there. And Merry Christine, I want to first of all, thank you for your time and commend you for everything you're doing for this world, for what educapital is doing for this world. And I really want to thank you and I and just been amazing having you on the show.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Okay, thank you Pablo for inviting me. And thank you also for making this job of a VC known by others.

Pablo Castro:

No, no, definitely. And I know more people are going to reach out with questions from this amazing interview and we will be talking soon. So thank you so much and thank you for your time. Okay, thank you.

Marie-Christine Levet:

Bye bye.

Pablo Castro:

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the New Light Ventures podcast. I'm Pablo Castro and it's been a pleasure bringing you insights and stories from the forefront of venture capital. We hope you're leaving with valuable knowledge and inspiration to carry you forward on your own venture journey. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review and share it with your network. For updates, additional resources, and to suggest guests for topics of future episodes, visit our website and follow us on our social media channels. We're excited to continue this journey with you, exploring our ever evolving landscape of venture capital. Until next time, keep innovating, keep investing, and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible. This is new light venture signing off. Let's keep the.