After ending 2017 on a high note, MyMicroInvest is ready to dive into a long-awaited change. Following a long and fruitful collaboration of more than six years, MyMicroInvest and impact venture capital fund Inventures have decided to continue their separate ways. Sharing until now the same legal structure, CEO and team, the two businesses took the logical and natural decision of setting distinct boundaries between them and split into two companies. This change will give Inventures the opportunity to further develop its leadership in investing in impact start-ups and scale-ups while the investment platform will get to focus even more on diversification for its investors and its core business. To do so, our investment platform has decided to change its name to Spreds and will be led by Charles-Albert de Radzitzky (CEO) and Gilles van der Meerschen (Chief Business Development Officer) while Olivier de Duve will lead the Inventures fund as CEO.
Since 2011, MyMicroInvest has been operating in the so called “regtech” sector with a market shaping strategy that has allowed it to become a leading investment platform in Europe while enabling every investor to finance companies that matter to them. The Inventures funds, created to support early stage smart and innovative European businesses (addressing at least one Sustainable Development Goal drafted by the United Nations), sustainable job growth and to empower entrepreneurs, have been growing ever since their creation.
This split will in no way change their objectives, values nor their respective operations. Although separated, with distinct management and teams, both companies have entered a partnership thanks to their new “Impact VC Tracer” service which allows the members of their platform to follow the next 10 start-ups entering the fund. Inventures will also continue to propose its investments in selected start-ups to the crowd.
MyMicroInvest becomes Spreds
In order to perfectly combine our new offer with our identity and correctly reflect our brand to the outside world, we knew that we needed a change. And what better way to do so than to update the first element our customer interacts with: our name!
By renaming our company Spreds, we chose to make our strategy clearer, simpler and more powerful than ever before. Two key meanings, related to our investors and entrepreneurs, can be found behind our new name:
- Diversification: we can never stress enough the importance of diversification. Even though start-up investing remains a risky activity, there is always a way to minimise the inherent risk: by spreading one’s assets. Our new “Tracers” service has been a clear reflexion of this need. This new tool will allow our investors to easily select interesting start-ups while having complete control over their investments.
- Sharing success: one of the core values of our company is sharing success. By uniting investors and entrepreneurs, we are allowing business owners to spread their wings and make their dream a reality.
2018, looking ahead
For 2018, Spreds will strive to become a central figure and an enabler in the entrepreneurial ecosystem by uniting all actors of the industry such as inspiring project leaders, incubators, accelerators accountants or supportive investors. The partnership with Start-Up Factory has motivated the Brussels based platform to more actively collaborate with incubators in order to offer start-ups an easier and quicker way to raise funds. Larger institutions have also expressed great interest in the platform’s offering.
Olivier de Duve, former CEO of MyMicroInvest and new CEO of Inventures: “Since 2011, we have experienced many exciting changes and 2017 will be amongst the most memorable years to date. The platform has developed its Tracers service and Inventures successfully launched its second fund. It is now time to focus our teams on their core business.”
Charles-Albert de Radzitzky, new CEO of Spreds: “During the coming year, we will be enhancing our Tracers service by expanding our offer to fit and answer the various needs of our investors and will be developing new partnerships. We will also continue to maintain our leadership in the Belgian financial landscape by positioning Spreds as the investment platform for the entire start-up environment.”